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I'm a little late on this but the Penguins have continued to shore up their bottom 6 forward grouping which was amongst the worst in the league last year. The Penguins have lost Tanner Glass, Joe Vitale, Deryk Engelland and Taylor Pyatt so far from that group. They have added Nick Spaling, Blake Comeau, and now Steve Downie.
Downie is probably the most interesting of the bottom 6 additions because of his unique past. Downie has found time playing on the wing playing with Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis in Tampa and he has also found himself suspended and in the trouble with the league for questionable actions on the ice.
Downie is best suited to play in a 3rd or 4th line role but in a pinch he could certainly perform spot duty on either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin's wing.
Downie signed with Pittsburgh because his former head coach in Tampa Bay was Rick Tocchet. Downie played his best hockey under Tocchet which saw him get 22 goals and 46 points in 2009-10. Those numbers are still career highs for him.
Downie has good underlying numbers throughout his career and for 1M he seems like he too will be another great value signing for Jim Rutherford during this offseason.
This chart does not have the 2012-13 season because Downie blew his knee out 2 games into the season.
Downie's numbers are mostly all above the 50% range which is nice to see from a guy that will be playing in your bottom 6. You can tell when he was playing with Stamkos and St. Louis because he goals for percentage goes through the roof at over 60%.
Last year saw Downie regress in both FF% and GF% but there was a good reason for that (no it was not because he was a Flyer). Downie has had hearing issues throughout his career and last year he lost 55% of his hearing. This also impacted his balance and as a result had a negative impact on his on ice play.
He told Josh Yohe of the Pittsburgh Tribune that he has had surgery for his hearing and that as of right now it is the best it has been in a while.
I look for Steve Downie to move around the Penguins lineup in the next year while not being a being an absolute liability like the group Pittsburgh had last year.
Good signing, great value, low risk high reward.
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A former Penguin and one of my favorite players of all time retired today, Alexei Kovalev. Kovalev played 365 games in Pittsburgh and notched 151 goals and 354 points.
Kovalev was one of the most electric players I have had the chance to see play in person. He had hands of gold and a brilliant hockey mind to match. There are not too many people in the history of the sport that could do some of the things that he could with the puck.
I love watching NHL hockey because I can watch players do things that I just was not/am not capable of doing. Alexei Kovalev is the epitome of that.
Congratulations to Alex Kovalev on a terrific career.
Thanks for reading!
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