SBN Reacts: Fans pretty confident regarding Penguins’ free agency

Last week we took a pre-free agency survey about seeing how the temperature of the fanbase was surrounding the Penguins as we head into what will be a very important off-season depending on how decisions go. Let’s check out what you thought!

A little better than two out of three fans were confident enough in a yes/no to predict Kris Letang would re-sign with Pittsburgh. That is looking to be the right call, with the reports that Letang and the Pens are closing in on announcing a contract extension.

However, that’s not the case for Evgeni Malkin with only about one in three feeling confident that the Pens and their other big time player would be back. We’ll see how it goes, with the Letang negotiation about wrapped up, the Pens should be able to turn full focus (finally) to Malkin to figure out if they can reach common ground with a deal that the player and team would both think works moving forward.

Even without one of the big guys potentially gone, the fanbase is still pretty confident that a Sidney Crosby/Jake Guentzel led team could find their way back to the postseason for a 17th straight time next year.

About one in three fans were either “very nervous” or “extremely concerned” last week about the status and progress of the negotiations. And that is completely fair — information has been scarce and the days and weeks have quickly ticked away without having much to be confident about until Hextall talked yesterday.

But, the majority of the fanbase was pretty relaxed and seemed to understand that a negotiation can turn quickly into an agreement when the deadline draws near.

Since the Pens have re-signed Casey DeSmith in between when this question was posed and now makes this a moot point by now. But we have the data, so why not see it. Only one in four fans were uninterested in a Marc-Andre Fleury and Pittsburgh reunion, with the vast majority at least open to the idea. And 4% just have the heart-eyes emoji for Fleury (not that there’s anything wrong with it!) and probably are still hoping against hope that he could one day end up as a Penguin again.

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