Roster looking finished, Therrien expected to fig nose at 2-yr extension offer

First, apparently, Darryl Sydor has formally asked to be traded. Perhaps he's unaware that we've been trying to trade him since we waived Mark Recchi. Its an attempt to save some face... like that psychotic girl who interrupted you breaking up with her to interject that she was, in fact, breaking up with you first. Tampa remain the front-runners, naturally.

Remember all those who illustrated their obviously jealous "Tampa North" scenario? Irony mildly describes the scenario today; Tampa Bay is Pittsburgh South. Its a destination for Penguin retirement and/or mediocrity. I guess Jagr and Straka weren't Penguins recently enough to qualify? The even feature an all-lefty defence. So now, there are the WB/S Baby Penguins, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Tampa Bay Old Penguins.

If they import Sydor or Scuderi, who is being packaged to make Sydor more attractive, they'll be two of Tampa's top 4, rivalling The Rangers for "most pathetic blueline" this upcoming season. Their top guys as it stands are Paul Ranger and Shane O'Brien. I've seen enough Matt Carle to place him 4th, with the aging Filip Kuba just itching to try and avoid physicality en route to collecting his $3M.

We're signing depth players to 2-way contracts, so basically unless something irrefutable comes our way, the roster is looking finished. It remains to be seen who plays where, it is up to Mike Therrien and his assistants. This is troubling to me. Mike played Staal as the top line LW and Petr Sykora on the 3rd line at the beginning of last season. If we had started better, I think we could have won the President's Trophy and the SC Finals could have been much different.

Anyway, I'm not an NHL coach. I don't know what goes into the decision making process. I do know, however, that Therrien looked ridiculous getting shut out for 2 games, dressing Laraque, and scratching Kris Letang for Darryl Sydor. I remember the mid-season policy with rotating defence. Everyone except Gonchar (including new $4M Ryan Whitney) was going to be scratched occasionally so that Therrien could make room for his boy Scuderi. Shocking. He, of course, used the policy to single out Brooks Orpik and didn't simply ignore Sydor indefinitely.

I know that he really, really wants Dany Sabourin to succeed. He wants him to win 15 games. Its asinine, but he's going to get the minutes to try and do that. He wanted Michel Ouellet to score 25 goals once, but he's with the Tampa Bay Old Penguins now. The guy loves minor-leaguers. Jeff Taffe is going to be on the team all season, and he's going to play Scuderi a lot. Goligoski is going to have a very frustrating season, full of lengthy scratches and awkward situations so that Scuderi can be nice and comfortable. The career potential will remain meaningless.