Pens For Sale?

[charlio lemieux]

Pens put up for purchase


Mario Lemieux announced yesterday that he and his partners have been approached by "a few groups."

Sportsnet.ca -- Pittsburgh Penguins ownership has started the process to sell the oft-times struggling franchise, according to a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Mario Lemieux announced yesterday that "a few groups" have shown interest in purchasing the team, and have approached him and his partners. He made it clear that future owners would be bound by any agreements already struck, including the promise to stay in town if a licence to run a slots parlour downtown is granted.

"I think we've done pretty much everything we can do, as far as setting up the franchise for the future," said Lemieux, who added his goal is to keep the team in Pittsburgh forever. "This franchise is going to be good for many years, with all the young kids we have. That's probably why there's a lot of interest [from prospective buyers]."

The Penguins captain plans to step down as CEO, to be replaced by president Ken Sawyer, a change that is expected to be approved by the team's board of directors when it meets tomorrow.

However, Lemieux intends to remain as chairman of the board. He has not yet decided on whether he will retire from play at the end of the season.



Wow, talk about a collapse. This was a team that was playoff bound, and in for a Cup run before the season.

[Max Power]

Well I bet the Winnipeg group has been all over that
From what I understand the whole bid for slots hasn?t gone well for the Pens. I?ll bet on the team moving but who knows

[a4l]

The Pens have been for sale many times before. Their financial woes are legendary.

[wildboy26]

I never thought the team was in for a cup run. That was all hype. I would have been very surprised had they even made the playoffs. Lemieux has not been healthy to play close to a full year in a long time, I expected he would play only about 20 games this year because getting injured or sick. Recchi, Gonchar, and LeClair are all past their primes, and I predicted all would dissapoint fans. They are about where I always expected they would be. They made a mistake going with so many questionable veterans. Their young players ended the 03-04 season well and they should have started the year using young player to play with Crosby leading the team of course. Now you have all these fading veterans with wounded egos supposably secretly whining about Crosby giving them orders, and the team is in disarray.

[MadDevil]

I never thought the team was in for a cup run. That was all hype. I would have been very surprised had they even made the playoffs. Lemieux has not been healthy to play close to a full year in a long time, I expected he would play only about 20 games this year because getting injured or sick. Recchi, Gonchar, and LeClair are all past their primes, and I predicted all would dissapoint fans. They are about where I always expected they would be. They made a mistake going with so many questionable veterans. Their young players ended the 03-04 season well and they should have started the year using young player to play with Crosby leading the team of course. Now you have all these fading veterans with wounded egos supposably secretly whining about Crosby giving them orders, and the team is in disarray.

Exactly. The thing that baffled me going into this season was why the Penguins were signing so many older players, when they were supposedly going through a rebuilding process. I think it may have been better to let their young guys develop together, rather than signing aging veterans simply because they could. This season is just another example of how inept Pens management truly is IMO.

[PDO]

I said the Pens were terrible in the preseason.. safe to say I was right ;)

How's this for a question though...

If the Penguins are sold, does Mario Lemeiux become available at the deadline?

[Max Power]

If the Penguins are sold, does Mario Lemeiux become available at the deadline?

That?s for sure an interesting thought? I?d love to see him in the Sens lineup for a cup run =]
But he would be still bailing on his boy Crosby and the team he built

[charlio lemieux]

With proper coaching and a healthy Mario, there was no reason for the Pens not to make the playoffs with the tallent they added. The team had a good finish to the previous season. Going 12-5-3 in their last 20 games, after the Ric Jackman trade. To that, they added almost Two full lines of offensive tallent,(Recchi, Palffy, Leclair, Crosby and Lemieux-he wasn't playing the previous season.) upgraded the goaltending(Thibault) and added one of the top Defensemen of the last decade.(Gonchar) Unfortunately Mario was a flop in the New NHL and had health issues to boot.
There are several things that led to the team being where it is. Like what the heck is Eddie Olczyk doing, coaching a team that is supposed to challenge for a playoff spot?

Coaching issues:
No defensive system at all. They thought they could just out score everyone.
PP. If they were running the pp right, Gonchar would be near the top in PP points.
Andre Roy. Why wasn't this guy wasn't beating everyone who touched Crosby?
Atmosphere. The Pens are known to have a Country Club type atmosphere. A good coach would have put an end to it.
Work Ethic. This would have changed with the demise of the country club.

Player issues:
The only players that lived up to their billing were Crosby and Palffy.
Player Health. Mario in particular, but others as well. Palffy, Tarnstrom.
Gonchar has been invisible.
Recchi is under -20. That is pathetic. Hitchcock wouldn't have allowed that.
Lemieux has health issues but it was apparent from the start the new NHL was wasn't working for him.
Thibault simply was awful. But so was the defense in front of him.

The players under-acheiving could have been dealt with, except for one last issue, which I feel is the Biggest Issue, and that's Ownership.
Specifically Mario Lemieux.
It has got to be impossible for a coach's rant to have any effect when the players see Mario sitting there knowing he could fire the sorry bugger of a coach the minute he pushes too far. Mario nullifies the coach's authority because he is a player, "one of the guys", and has the power to fire the coach. So if a coach has no authority he will be useless. See above Coaching Issues.
Mario should have either become a player/coach himself, or removed himself from ownership before the season started.

[PDO]

Here's the bottom line on Pittsburgh..

The worst team in the league added Crosby, Palffy, Gonchar, Rechhi, Leclair.

In net, if money wasn't an issue, they had very capable 'tending in MAF. After that.. Rechhi and Leclair were washed up, and Pittsburgh should've known that. That means the worst team in the league added an 18 year old, an elite player who was very injury prone, and signed a Russian to a monstrous contract. Not to mention a Russian who's never been able to play defense for the life of him anyway.

I said it'd be a shooting gallery in Pittsburgh, and I was right. I'll leave it at that ;]

[Newfie John]

Brian would you like a medal or something? lol

[PDO]

Brian would you like a medal or something? lol

No, I'm just not going to get into a pissing match over the idea of Pittsburgh ever having a shot this season...

Besides, I only take gold stars. :]

http://catalog.claseprofessor.com/images/edu/big/CE/BJ51202.gif

[charlio lemieux]

The bottom line is that with proper coaching and no ownership in the dressing room the Pens would have had a shot at the playoffs.
As for washed up I agree Leclair is pretty far gone but should still be able to score 25 or more with the players around him. Recchi, I don't buy it. He has 36pts this year, so he can still contribute, but his defense is non-existant. The lack of disipline from the coaches has let everyone's game slide. A better coach from the begining would have made some difference. The real problem is having an owner in the dressing room.

The worst team in the league added Crosby, Palffy, Gonchar, Rechhi, Leclair.

Sorry but the worst team in the league added, Crosby, Palffy, Gonchar, Recchi, Leclair, Lemieux and Thibault. Plus the #5 overall pick from '02 Ryan Whitney.
You have to count Lemieux in with the players added because he wasn't there for the majority of 03-04.
The health of the players has to be an issue, but it's the coaching and Mario-the-Owner's influence in the dressingroom that ruined this team.

[leaferfan87]

I said the Pens were terrible in the preseason.. safe to say I was right ;)

How's this for a question though...

If the Penguins are sold, does Mario Lemeiux become available at the deadline?

I don't think he'll be available at the deadline. Lemieux is the face of the Penguins, he's the reason they're still there. I don't picture him in any other uniform.

If he leaves then that's a symbol that the future of the Penguins franchise is toast. I don't see him leaving this season to go to another team.

[MadDevil]

The more interesting question would be, what would a team offer up in return for Lemieux? It would be rather interesting...

I don't think he'll go anywhere, but you never know. The Penguins remind me too much of the Rangers of the late 90's and early 2000's. High priced, aging offensive players, a practically nonexistent defense, problems in goal, and no coach that can take control of the locker room, and bring a team together. It seems odd actually, the Pens have been crying for years that they can't afford to spend on good players (albeit they did have financial problems), and now that the playing field is more even, they overspend on questionable signings.

Recchi, Palffy, Gonchar, and Thibault were decent looking moves, but why they brought John LeClair into that locker room is beyond me. The guy has done nothing but decline in production the last 4-5 seasons, he seems to have lengthy goal scoring droughts, and isn't that fast of a guy to begin with. The Pens focused too much on surrounding Crosby with offensive players, and didn't pay enough attention to what's turned out to be their real weaknesses, defense and goaltending. Thibault was supposed to be the one to fix all that, and so far has done nothing (granted, he's been hurt, again).

I think Pens management's eyes got big when they realized they could afford to sign big names, and didn't think all their moves completely through before making them. I will give them this much, I don't think anybody could have predicted things would go that badly, that quickly.

[wildboy26]

Sorry but the worst team in the league added, Crosby, Palffy, Gonchar, Recchi, Leclair, Lemieux and Thibault. Plus the #5 overall pick from '02 Ryan Whitney.
You have to count Lemieux in with the players added because he wasn't there for the majority of 03-04.

Mario was never likely to be healthy for a full year. It would have been a total shock if he was able to do so.

[charlio lemieux]

A healthy productive Lemieux, is only good for about 60 games, and that is all Pittsburg was counting on. He simply wasn't able to produce like he was expecting to.