Did Marian Hossa Ruin the Penguins’ Season?

The Pittsburgh Penguins, the 2008 Eastern Conference Champions, currently sit on the outside of the NHL playoffs.  They have not won more than two games in a row since November and they recently fired their head coach.  

There have been numerous articles written on the reasons for the Penguins’ problems.  The blame has been passed from Michel Therrien and Ray Shero to Marc-Andre Fleury to Sidney Crosby and beyond.  Every member of the Penguins organization has been blamed.  But there is one man, a man that now sits outside the organization, that could be the reason for the team’s struggles this year.

That man is Marian Hossa.

Now, to be clear, it was not the trade for Marian Hossa that caused the Penguins issues this season.  While the team did give up a lot for Hossa, only one player – Colby Armstrong – would have made an impact on the team this year.  Losing Eric Christensen, Angelo Esposito and a first round pick may hurt the team’s depth in the long run, but none of those assets would have helped the team this season.

No, it was the way Marian Hossa left the Penguins that caused their downfall in 2008-2009.

During the summer Ray Shero correctly prioritized Hossa over the Penguins other free agents.  He knew that in the salary cap era it would not be possible to keep both Marian Hossa and Ryan Malone, who was going to receive a large raise.  And so he made the decision to let Malone go in order to negotiate with Hossa.  Of course, if the team was going to sign Hossa, money would need to be saved elsewhere.  And so Ray Shero also decided to let Gary Roberts leave the organization.  He smartly traded the rights to negotiate with both players to the Tampa Bay Lightning  for a third round draft pick.  It was a good way to get something for two players that were going to leave town for nothing.

But more money needed to be saved and so Adam Hall was also allowed to leave.  Ty Conklin left the team as well, but his departure was more due to playing time than salary.

It all seemed to be going as planned for Ray Shero.  Then it started to fall apart.  First Marian Hossa’s agent asked Shero to add term to his offer and so the deal was extended from five years to seven years.  Marian Hossa would have been making between $7 and $7.5 million dollars a season for seven years if he had re-signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins.  And Ray Shero believed that was going to happen.  They were hashing out the details of the contract and they were talking about the number of years Hossa would sign for, it looked like the superstar winger was going to remain a Pittsburgh Penguin.

And then the call came that he was instead going to become a Detroit Red Wing.

It cut deep into the hearts of Penguins fans around the world.  Marian Hossa, less than a month after being defeated by the Red Wings, was going to join them for a better chance to win the Stanley Cup.  But this wasn’t just an emotional loss.  This was a financial one.  Ray Shero had budgeted for Marian Hossa.  He has lost Malone, Roberts and Hall in order to afford Hossa.  And now Hossa was gone as well.

So Ray Shero was forced into Plan B. 

He saved more money by allowing Jarkko Ruutu and Georges Laraque to leave and replacing them with Matt Cooke and Eric Godard.  Then he went and took a gamble on two of the free agents that were still available: Miroslav Satan and Ruslan Fedotenko.

Who knows what would have happened if Marian Hossa had told Ray Shero he was not going to re-sign with the Penguins at the end of June instead of on July 2nd?  Would Ryan Malone still be a Penguin?  Would Gary Roberts or Adam Hall?  Would the Penguins have instead pursued other free agent wingers?  Would we be looking at a different Penguins team this season?

Obviously there is no way to know.

Marian Hossa did not purposely try cause problems for the Penguins, he was simply doing what was best for himself. But he inadvertently threw a wrench into Ray Shero’s plans and possibly ruined the Pittsburgh Penguins’ season at the same time.

Image Credit: Daylife.com

Rick Moldovanyi is a freelance journalist from Toronto. He covers the Pittsburgh Penguins at Penguins Experience and has written for several publications in the Toronto area.

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