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E-mailPenguins GM Shero reflects on Whitney deal
Ryan Whitney
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Rob Rossi is the Penguins beat writer. He can be reached via e-mail. Also check out Rossi's blog or follow him on Twitter.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Hoisting the Stanley Cup last spring hasn't changed Penguins general manager Ray Shero's perspective on trading defenseman Ryan Whitney to Anaheim on Feb. 26 for top-line winger Chris Kunitz and top prospect winger Eric Tangradi.
"The only difficult part about that deal was trading Ryan," Shero said Tuesday before the Penguins faced the Ducks at Honda Center. "The beauty of Ryan Whitney is he is 6-feet-4, covers a lot of ice, has vision like not many defensemen do and can get you 50 to 60 points by playing on your top power play.
"It's hard to find players like that."
Whitney had scored a goal and recorded seven points to go with a plus-3 rating in 12 contests with Anaheim before Tuesday night. He is healthy for the first time since a breakout 2006-07 campaign with the Penguins, when his 59 points were sixth most among NHL defensemen and he tied for eighth among peers with 33 power-play points.
He has returned to the form he flashed during all but his final months with the Penguins. Ducks teammates dig his cut-up act in the dressing room, their coaches wish he would close off the middle of the ice defensively, and coach Randy Carlyle said he'd prefer to see more of Whitney's shot from the point on offense.
Whitney joked yesterday that passing was part of his job with the Penguins, whose power plays during his tenure included defenseman Sergei Gonchar, his point partner, and perennial top-tier scoring centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
That Whitney is joking at all shows he has moved on emotionally from the trade that "was pretty easy to figure out before it happened."
"I kind of felt it," Whitney said. "I wasn't playing very well and was making more money than (defensemen Alex Goligoski and Kris Letang), and they're both really good players. They needed a winger, and pretty much I wasn't needed there anymore."
Goligoski scored six goals and recorded 18 points in 32 games before Whitney's return last season from a foot injury that cost him the opening 33 games. Letang had a goal and 13 points, and played at least 20 minutes in 24 games.
Whitney, still recovering from offseason foot surgery, posted four goals and 13 points in his final 29 games with the Penguins.
With five years remaining on a Whitney contract that counted $4 million annually against the cap, and with new deals soon due to Goligoski, Letang and Gonchar, Shero was in a position of strength to deal Whitney, whom he had identified as a "core piece" by signing him for six years in July 2007.
"We were fortunate to have one excess puck mover; that doesn't happen very often," Shero said. "But I wouldn't be in a position to trade Whitney, because a player like him is so hard to get, if I didn't have Letang, Gonchar and Goligoski."
