Borrowing from our friend, The Peerless Prognosticator, would would a team full of current NHL'ers all with Pittsburgh Penguins ties look like? Well, probably something like this-
Ryan Malone - Dominic Moore - Marian Hossa
Ruslan Fedotenko - Erik Christensen - Jaromir Jagr
Jarkko Ruutu - Maxime Talbot - Colby Armstrong
Alexei Ponikarovsky - Mike Rupp - Tom Kostopolous
Ryan Whitney / Rob Scuderi
Mark Eaton / Sergei Gonchar
Alex Goligoski / Hal Gill
Ty Conklin
Mathieu Garon
--Not too much skill down the middle (luckily PIttsburgh has retained all of that) but you'll note I had to bump Moore to 1st line and EC to the second line so that Jagr could have his right-handed shot.
--A Ruutu/Talbot/Armstrong line? Yeesh, I have a headache just thinking about them yapping all over the rink...And possibly doing more if you turned a back or dropped your head to some of the elbows/shoulders.
--That defense (plus Jordan Leopold) could be better as a unit this year than what some NHL teams. Sadly, Gonch, Whits and Goose all would be top power play guys in PIttsburgh still and their absences are badly missed (from that unit, at least)
--Not much in the net either, huh? It's been the Marc-Andre Fleury show and a parade of journeymen backups and that really shows in an exercise like this.
--Rupp and Kostopolous add plenty of grit, but imagine if we kept loading up with Eric Godard and Paul Bissonnette. The Pens might have the best batch of ex-fighters still in the league.
--Interesting that the three most skilled forwards - Hossa, Jagr and Malone- all have negative reputations amongst Pens fans for the circumstances of their departures from Pittsburgh. (Though certainly Malon and even Hossa don't rancor as much as Jagr, currently). Are we upset as fans just for these talented players choosing other places/more money? Or are we upset on losing out on some needed winger talent.
--What do you think of this team? Enough to beat Peerless' set of ex-Caps? I would say the ex-Pens have the edge, but maybe that speaks to Washington being able to retain more of their NHL talent...Or, by the other side of the coin, maybe it shows that Pittsburgh has been able to acquire more NHL talent to be able to shed.