No one doubts that this year the Pittsburgh Penguins will score tons of goals.  With the likes of Crosby, Malkin, and Staal, this is almost certain.  However, over the last three seasons the Penguins have lost some key defensemen, either by trade or free agency.  Although they have made some moves to improve their blue line, I am not sure they have done enough to remain as competitive as they have been in recent years.

First lets look at who they have lost.  The most noticeable person that will be missing from opening night at the new Consol Energy Center will be Sergei Gonchar. Over the last three seasons (well 2 1/2)this smooth skating defenseman has amassed 134 points in 164 games, not counting the playoffs.  He also is the quarterback on the power play and first line on the penalty kill. His absence is something that could throw off the Pen's entire special teams play. Second is Rob Scuderi.  The former Pens' blueliner spent the entire season last year in LA.  In his last two years as a Penguin he only managed 21 points, but his plus 44 rating over that same time was amazing.  Even Gonchar was only a plus 15 over that same amount of time.  The last Penguin d-man to move on was solid 3-4 defenseman, Mark Eaton.  Eaton decided to sign a two year deal with the NY Islanders.  He already has a Cup and seemed to want more playing time, something he will get on the Island.  

The two major additions this year were both acquired via free agency and both solid moves by GM Ray Shero.  Zbynek Michalek has been a solid shut down defender for the last few seasons for the Phoenix Coyotes.  He has been among the leaders in shots blocked and has averaged a respectable 22 points per season over the last three seasons.  The other defenseman added for this upcoming season was long time Devils D-man Paul Martin.  Martin had an injury plagued season last year but has managed 76 points over the last three years.  He was a Devil for his entire career until now, this is something teams will look for because most of the time you will get a solid responsible player with a team first attitude (except of course for Scott Gomez).  Martin's plus 51 rating over the last three seasons is pretty attractive to any team as well.  However, both he and Michalek cannot make up for the loss of Gonchar and Eaton.  Gonchar has had seasons of 50 and more points and I do not think either of the new additions are capable of those numbers.

The other additions you have to look at are the home-grown ones.  Alex Goligoski and Kris Letang have been making steady progress year to year and hopefully this year they both will make the jump to being top 4 defenseman.  The only question is, have the Penguins done enough to continue to be contenders?  The answer is not yet.  I do not think that Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek completely make up for the losses of Scuderi, Eaton, and Gonchar.  However, if the Pens were to falter defensively at all, I believe that Ray Shero would not hesitate to make the necessary changes.  I bet we see some more defensive additions before the Pens reach the end of this season.

Last night as I was watching the New York Rangers hoist Lord Stanley's cup in a replay of game 7 from 1994 I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever see that sight again.  Since the Rangers won the Cup in 1994 they have gone on to make the playoffs only 7 times and won a total of 6 series in those appearances.  There have been many changes to the faces of the team on the ice.  Many players including several high profile names have come and left the ice of Madison Square Garden, but the team has not really seen success since 1994.  In recent years the Blueshirts have been a bubble team either making or missing the playoffs by a few points. 

There are only a few faces that have been with the team for several years. Those are the faces of the management and ownership.  They are of course the infamous Glen Sather and James L. Dolan respectively.  Before Glen Sather took over the role as General Manger Neil Smith held the position.  Smith took over the job in 1989 and was responsible for drafting players like Alexei Kovalev, Doug Weight, Sergei Nemchinov and Sergei Zubov.  He also discovered players like Brian Leetch and Mike Richter who developed into superstars while he was the GM.  Smith is best remembered by the Rangers and their fans as the GM who was able to bring many of the Edmonton Oilers to New York including, of course, Mark Messier who is know by fans and among the organization as simply "the Captain" and of course as the GM who ended the 54 year cup drought in 1994.  Smith was also able to bring the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky to New York in 1996.  He led the team to the conference finals in 1997 (lost to the Flyers) and retired as a Ranger in 1999.  Under Neil Smith the Rangers made the playoffs 8 times and won a total of 11 series including making it to the conference finals in 1997 and of course winning the Cup in 1994.  Overall I feel that Neil Smith's reign as GM of the club could be considered a success.  Despite this success, it was decided that after missing the playoffs for two consecutive seasons Smith needed to go and Glen Sather was the man to take over the position in 2000.

There were high expectations when Sather came to the Big Apple.  After all he helped the Edmonton Oilers win 4 Stanley Cups as their head coach and even when they were not winning the Cup the Oilers were making the playoffs and always in contention.  The Rangers team was aging and Smith had traded away many of the younger players and prospects to build the 1994 team as well as the teams in the following years.  Sather had boasted that, "If I had their payroll, my team would never lose" before he became the GM.  So what happened?  The team continued to pay older players too much money to come to New York, they continued to either trade away prospects or keep them in the minors never giving them a chance to show what they could do with the big club.  The result, they missed the playoffs from when Sather took the reigns until the lockout in 2005.

During that time Sather made numerous moves to bring big names to New York with little or nothing to show for them besides an ever growing payroll.  Players like Eric Lindros and Bobby Holik were given big money deals to play at Madison Square Garden.  Even worse then some of the players Sather brought in were the players he traded away.  Fan favorites like Adam Graves and Brian Leetch were sent away for a handful of magic beans.  Brian Leetch, arguably the best U.S. born defencemen to ever play in the NHL was traded away to Toronto for Maxim Kondratiev, Jarrko Immonen, a first round draft pick (who turned out to be Lauri Korpikoski who was also later traded away) and a 2nd round draft pick (who turned out to be Michael Sauer who played 3 games with the Rangers in 2008-2009 and has played the rest of his pro career with the Harford Wolfpack). 

Drafting was and continues to be a problem for Sather but it was never more noticeable then in the 2003 entry draft.  The Rangers, more specifically Sather,  selected Hugh Jessiman with the 12th overall pick passing on players such as Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown, Zach Parise and Ryan Getzlaf to name a few.  Drafting is not a perfect science but Jessiman is the only player taken in the first round of that draft to never set foot on the ice in an NHL game.  In fact that draft class yielded 10 NHL all stars and 4 player who have won the Stanley Cup, last I heard Jessiman was tearing it up in the ECHL.

With all of this going on why wouldn't Glen Sather get fired you ask?  Well, in 2005 the NHL experienced a lockout which canceled the entire season.  I am sure you are aware that the biggest thing to come out of that lockout was the salary cap that's now in place under the league's collective bargaining agreement.  Since then, despite Sather's best efforts to never draft anyone who was good enough to play in the NHL he managed to end up with players like Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, Marc Staal and of course Henrik Lundqvist.  When the salary cap went into place Sather was forced to bring up players that would normally have wasted away in Hartford or be traded away as in the past instead of signing more big names to more big money.  Coming out of the lockout the Rangers also had a new head coach in place in Tom Renney.  The addition of all the young talent getting a chance to play and a head coach that had a perfect and effective coaching style for the young guys was a very good combination. Add an injury to Kevin Weeks, which let the team get a look at an unknown goaltender by the name of Henrik Lundqvist and suddenly the Rangers were a team that could make the playoffs despite Glen Sather.

After the team started making the playoffs the big name deals didn't stop, or even really slow down. Chris Drury, Scott Gomez, Michael Rozival, and of course Wade Redden were all given deals that they have not lived up too.  Gomez has since moved on to Montreal and has been playing well for them, but the rest of these guys are still in New York making way too much money and not producing the results to back it up.  The worst part is that these deals are crippling the team's ability to sign the players they need. They are also impossible to trade because of the huge pay checks they would take with them.

From 2005 until 2009 the team made the playoffs in large part to the play of Lundqvist who manages to keep this team competitive despite their anemic offense night in and night out.  Just as the fans were starting to make it known that they were tired of this team doing the same thing year after year, which was just squeaking into the playoffs usually to lose in the first round.  The organization finally decided to make a change.  Was Sather finally going to go as the fans chanted "FIRE SATHER" from the blue seats?  No, it would be Tom Renney that would be leaving to make room for John Tortorella.  At the time it seemed like a decent move as the team was no longer responding to Renney's nice guy demeanor and coaching style.  Torts seemed like a logical replacement and the team made the playoffs with a great run down the stretch to once again squeak into the playoffs.  They promptly ruined the good feelings about the team by blowing a 3-1 series lead against the Washington Capitals and getting bounced from the playoffs once again in the first round.

Last season was more of the same and Sather brought in players like Donald Brashear for over a million dollars a season and gave Rozsival way too much money to stay in New York.  The best move in the last few season was the addition of Marian Gaborik, who quickly became the teams leading scorer with 42 goals and 44 assists.  So far so good on that deal although Gaborik is injury prone and still has 4 years left on a hefty deal.  Despite all of Gaborik's added offense the Rangers seemed to once again stop responding to their coach's style and missed the playoffs with a loss to the Flyers in a shootout in the last game of the last season.  It seems like the hard and tough style that John Tortorella brings to the table was not that effective in his first full season behind the bench but the organization has decided to stay with him.

Sather has clearly not changed his philosophy of wanting big tough players on the squad.  During this year's entry draft the Rangers selected Dylan McIlrath with the 12th overall pick while Cam Fowler and Brad Gormley were still available.  Also this off season the Rangers signed free agent Derek Boogard to a 4 year contract worth over $1.6 million per season making him the latest over paid "tough guy" to pull on a Ranger's sweater. 

The game of hockey has changed dramatically since the lockout and the top teams in the league are building on young talent and smart drafting.  Several teams that are in the rebuilding stage like Tampa Bay and the New York Islanders have also stock piled talent with high draft picks and are now poised to make a playoff push making those top 8 spots in the Eastern Conference even harder to obtain.  Until the Rangers get a GM that understands how the game has changed and has a better vision for the future they will continue to find themselves as a middle of the road team trying to once again sneak into the playoffs with little hope of making a significant run at the Cup.

With his history of making silly deals, paying players too much, always wanting to add "toughness" over scoring and often suspect drafting, Sather still sits at the head of the table in New York as GM and President of the Rangers answering only to James Dolan and the ownership and not the fans.