Pens vs Leafs

Just when it looked like the Penguins had really turned the corner and were going to compete for a playoff spot they go out and play a stinker. This game started off very promising with the Penguins jumping out to a 2 nothing lead in the first period, after that it was all Leafs. The Leafs scored 6 unanswered goals in the second and third period to hand the Penguins an embarrassing loss and in all likeliness end the Penguins playoffs hopes. The Penguins entered the game 5 points behind the 7th and 8th place teams despite winning 3 of there last 4 games, they needed this game bad to close the gap to 3 points. This is not like losing to the Red wings the Leafs are one of the worst teams in the league, and we certainly cant afford not to come away with 2 points against teams that are lower than us in the standings. The bright spot of the game was Fleury, i thought he played a great game and made some unreal saves. You will not hear me say that very often about a goalie that gave up 6 goals in a game. So what does this loss mean for the Penguins heading into the trade deadline? Well for me it means everybody on our roster with the exceptions of Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, and Letang should be made available at the trade deadline by Ray Shero. This does not mean i think they should all be traded but Shero should be listening to offers for all those players. Here are the players excluding the ones mentioned above that would take huge offers to pry out of my hands Gonchar who has one more year on his contract, Orpik our only physical defensemen who has 3 seasons left on his contract, Staal who is only 20 years old has a affordable 4 year contract and has shown much improvement since signing his extension. Also i would trade either Whitney or Gogo but not both of them. It will be very interesting to see what happens over the next three weeks. If Shero handles this situation properly we may miss the playoffs but we should be able to clear some cap space so we can sign a scoring winger in the off season ,and also bring in some quality players from the trades made to return us to the Cup Finals next year.