After an exciting season, a short and disappointing post season, the Pittsburgh Penguins got off to a slow off-season. The thinking around the Ogre’s Den was “Here we go again”. Pull up a rock and watch the rest of the NHL draft, steal, and drain your team dry while our GM sits back and watches like some blue collar comedy show has his mind trapped in a “don’t git ‘er done” mode.
Too many times have we sat back and watched good to real good players walk out due to an inability to sign them to the money necessary to keep them here. And to sign a free agent with a name that a least someone on the planet Earth knows, well that would be just unheard of.
That was until this year.
After a draft that included a young prospect that was ranked many places higher than the Penguins got him at, the re-signings of Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts and then they sign free agents defensemen Darryl Sydor and right wing Petr Sykora! The neighbors must have thought the ogre’s were mounting an attack of biblical proportions with all the whooping and the hollering!
And they weren’t done. The got Ryan Whitney to agree to a six-year contract, Erik Christensen, Maxime Talbot, and Rob Scuderi to sign contracts, and, get this: avoid salary arbitration with Colby Armstrong! My head was spinning so bad I felt like I just came from a Ted Nugent concert.
And by the grace of God, they still had something left to daze and amaze. They came to agreement on a five-year extension to the contract of captain Sidney Crosby, locking him in a Penguins sweater for the next six years. I need a cigarette and I don’t even smoke!
This all sets us Penguin fans up for a big fall. With all this excitement, if they don’t win the next five Stanley Cups, we will be wildly disappointed. 
None of these measures guarantee anything, but the anticipation of what may be, is like having the best dream you’ve ever had.
So, please, don’t wake me if it’s a dream. I couldn’t bear to know what really happened this off season.
