Old trade review: Whitney for Kunitz/Tangradi

About Kunitz’s salary- Sure! But Whitney was slightly more expensive ontop of being completely expendable. So we basically traded one thing we didn’t need for two things we did… Last year, Kunitz had a lot of injury issues followed up by slumps. Hopefully he can play 75+ games this year.

Edmonton has a good, hidden advantage though, I wouldn’t write them as total losers…And I don’t think Whitney played too badly up there either.

Plus with Letang and Goligoski showing they were in fact NHL defensemen the Pens were good there, they needed a forward just like Kunitz to help win the Cup.

Michalek.

Especially when you’re paying $3.5m to Letang.

sounds like a very good day for Tangradi at camp
DePaoli reporting he looks healthy — finally
and the power in his shots is back
esp. his snapshot

If this is accurate, I’m going to be really happy. Could you imagine a 2nd line with Tangradi, Staal, and Malkin?

Thanks for the shoutout Diomedes! Tis a great forum :) Thank you!

total reply fail

I don’t like Ryan Whiteny because retaining him would have kept us from getting Michalek and Martin.

We all have fun at Ryan Whitney’s expense, and for good reason.

But I’ll always remember, and respect that night in June in the 3-OT game where he played the most minutes of any player (Gonchar hurt his back, you might remember), and for my money Whitney was the best player in that game. And he did it on one foot too.

I wasn’t blogging at the time either, but I can tell you that this was the reaction of the DC-Baltimore corridor (plus 1 in Shrewsbury) Penguins fans that I know.

I think the general consensus among Penguins fans was an overall feeling of frustration with Whitney’s play prior to the trade and bittersweet to see him go. Lots of promise still in this guy we thought, despite he made rookie errors, soft on defense, and his offensive production was suffering. I remember one particular game shortly before he was traded, I think it was against the Leafs, the Penguins were down a goal, on the PP, and the Penguins pulled Fleury for the extra attacker with a minute left, Whitney carried the puck towards the offensive zone and iced the puck on a powerplay. For me, that was it.

Also at the time, Kris Letang had started to emerge as a cheap, consistent offensive force and that made Whitney expendable.

The return was good for both sides. I was familiar with Kunitz from watching a lot of Sharks vs Ducks games, but supposedly Tangradi was the centerpiece of the deal that Ducks fans were somewhat upset about losing. I didn’t think Kunitz was the answer for the goal scoring winger that the Pens had been looking for since Hossa, but he’s proved his value in other ways.