It was the blockbuster trade of the deadline and possibly one of the most shocking deal I can remember. Pittsburgh Penguins, who’d only been loosely rumored to even have an interest in Marian Hossa, swooped in at the last second and sent Sidney Crosby’s best friend right winger Colby Armstrong, sniper Erik Christensen, 1st round draft pick Angelo Esposito and a 1st round draft pick to the Atlanta Thrashers for Hossa and defensive-minded forward Pascal Dupuis. The reaction was mixed from everyone, including myself. I didn’t mind Christensen, Esposito and the 1st rounder, but giving up Armstrong stung a bit. The Penguins have struggled to play the kind of nasty, gritty game that is often necessary in the playoffs and they sent one of their few guys who could excel in that environment. Of course, the other big question was whether or not Hossa would purely be a rental or if the Penguins had found their Jari Kurri for their Wayne Gretzky.
Marian Hossa entered the league as an Ottawa Senator when they drafted him 12 overall in 1997. At 6’1, 210 lbs he’s an incredible skater with remarkably soft hands. It’s nearly impossible to move him off the puck in the offensive zone and he possesses one of the best shots in the league. He’s consistently put up impressive regular season numbers failing to hit the 30 goal mark only 2 times in the last 10 years and in one of those he scored 29.
He spent 7 seasons in Ottawa before being traded to the Atlanta Thrasher in exchange for, the then troubled, Dany Heatley. Hossa, himself, hadn’t been able to avoid trouble. On a follow through from a slapshot, Hossa’s stick came up and clipped Toronto Maple Leaf’s defenseman Brian Berard in the eye. Berard collapsed to the ice in a pool of blood and was rushed to the hospital. The initial diagnosis was that he would most likely never see out of that eye again. After 7 operations he regained 20/600 vision in the eye and eventually returned to the NHL. While the play was clearly an accident there were many, including Maple Leafs GM Pat Quinn, who felt like it was actually a dirty play. Hossa apologized to Berard and his family and both were said to have accepted the apology.
Heatley, on the other hand, was involved in an off-ice incident that resulted in the death of a friend and teammate. Dan Snyder and Heatley were driving back from a season ticket holder function with Heatley behind the wheel. According to police, Heatley was driving in excess of 80 mph and lost control of his Ferrari. The results of the crash were devastating and Dan Synder died at the hospital without ever having regained consciousness. Heatley himself suffered a knee injury that cost him the next season, but he was at risk of spending time in prison for the accident. Heatley was found guilty of first-degree vehicular homicide, which carries a 3-15 year prison sentence, but Synder’s family pleaded with the judge to keep Heatley out of prison. Ultimately, he was sentenced to 3 years probation and was traded 6 months later. Heatley himself requested the trade, claiming he wanted a fresh start.
Hossa excelled in his new environment playing alongside young phenom Ilya Kovalchuk. His first season in Atlanta was a career year for him where he put up 39 goals and 53 assists. He followed that up with an even better performance and helped the Thrashers reach the playoffs for the first time in franchise history with his first 100 point season. All in all, he scored 82 goals and added 110 assists in those first two seasons for the Thrashers and Atlanta seemed to have the one-two punch of superstar forwards that coaches dream of. Unfortunately, Atlanta was swept in the first round and Hossa had little impact on the series registering only 1 assist and finishing with a -6 in the four games. In fact, the biggest knock against Hossa has always been his lack of playoff production or at least that’s what we were hearing leading up to the trade deadline. Over his career, he’s played in 55 post-season games accumulating 13 goals and 22 assists with a -9 rating. These are the stats that were thrown around by analysts as they evaluated Hossa’ value to a playoff bound team but if you look at these numbers a little more closely things are not quite what they seem.
If you remove the 99-2000 season, which was only his third year in the league where he put up 56 points during the regular season, the numbers seem to change pretty drastically. Furthermore, if you look at 01-03, the two years in which the Senators went deep into the playoffs, Hossa’s stats don’t look so unimpressive. Over those two years he played in 30 playoff games and put up 26 points, which is a solid effort for any forward. In fact, if you compare those percentages to what Teemu Selanne did the last two season for the Ducks, 29 points in 37 games, it’s about on-par with what you’d expect from a star forward. In fact, his numbers are better than Selanne’s. I’m not sure a player can ever produce enough points in the playoffs, but it’s seems a bit unfair to accuse of him of disappearing during the post-season.
| Career Postseason Stats | ||||||||||||
| Totals | Team | GP | G | A | Pts | +/- | PM | PP | SHG | GWG | S | SPct. |
| 1998-99 | Ott | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0.00 |
| 1999-00 | Ott | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.00 |
| 2000-01 | Ott | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 8.33 |
| 2001-02 | Ott | 12 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 9.52 |
| 2002-03 | Ott | 18 | 5 | 11 | 16 | -1 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 54 | 9.26 |
| 2003-04 | Ott | 7 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 32 | 9.38 |
| 2006-07 | Atl | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.00 |
| Career | 55 | 13 | 22 | 35 | -9 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 175 | 7.43 | |
The Thrashers have desperately been trying to build a solid fanbase in the south and even sold away some of their future for playoff rental players last season so allowing Marian Hossa to walk at first seemed illogical. It eventually became clear that Hossa wasn’t too interested in staying in Atlanta. I’ve heard many concerns over the franchise in general, especially in relation to their minor league and developmental programs, and this decision seems to echo them. Ultimately, he forced their hand and the Thrashers simply couldn’t let him walk for nothing. They got a fine package in return as Armstrong and Christensen have both played well since arriving in Atlanta, Esposito could be a future star in the league and the upcoming draft is deep enough for them to snatch a valuable player with the last first round pick. Atlanta was probably has happy as could be expected.
The Penguins, on the other hand, took heat for the trade. Many felt like Hossa was purely a rental and the Pens wouldn’t be able to afford him next season with Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Marc-Andre Fleury and Ryan Malone all requiring new deals in the near future. However, I’m not quite certain that they can’t. I looked up some of the salary numbers and I don’t claim these to be particularly accurate but they should be in the ballpark.
| PLAYER | POS | TEAM | D.O.B. | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 |
| In the NHL | | | | | | |
| HOSSA, MARIAN | R | PIT | 79/01/12 | $7,000,000 | $7,500,000 | $7,500,000 |
| GONCHAR, SERGEI | D | PIT | 74/04/13 | $5,500,000 | $6,000,000 | $5,500,000 |
| ROBERTS, GARY | L | PIT | 66/05/23 | $2,500,000 | retire | |
| SYDOR, DARRYL | D | PIT | 72/05/13 | $2,500,000 | $2,500,000 | UFA |
| SYKORA, PETR | R | PIT | 76/11/19 | $2,500,000 | $2,500,000 | UFA |
| WHITNEY, RYAN | D | PIT | 83/02/19 | $2,500,000 | $3,000,000 | $3,500,000 |
| GILL, HAL | D | PIT | 75/04/06 | $2,075,000 | $2,100,000 | UFA |
| EATON, MARK | D | PIT | 77/05/06 | $1,600,000 | release | |
| FLEURY, MARC-ANDRE | G | PIT | 84/11/28 | $1,600,000 | $5,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
| MALONE, RYAN | L | PIT | 79/12/01 | $1,450,000 | $3,000,000 | $3,500,000 |
| LARAQUE, GEORGES | R | PIT | 76/12/07 | $1,300,000 | $1,500,000 | |
| RUUTU, JARKKO | L | PIT | 75/08/23 | $1,150,000 | release | |
| ORPIK, BROOKS | D | PIT | 80/09/26 | $1,075,000 | $1,500,000 | $1,500,000 |
| MALKIN, EVGENI | C | PIT | 86/07/31 | $984,200 | $984,200 | $8,000,000 |
| DUPUIS, PASCAL | L | PIT | 79/04/07 | $880,000 | $1,500,000 | $1,500,000 |
| CROSBY, SIDNEY | C | PIT | 87/08/07 | $850,000 | $9,000,000 | $9,000,000 |
| STAAL, JORDAN | C | PIT | 88/09/10 | $850,000 | $850,000 | RFA |
| SCUDERI, ROBERT | D | PIT | 78/12/30 | $700,000 | $725,000 | UFA |
| TALBOT, MAXIME | C | PIT | 84/02/11 | $650,000 | $700,000 | RFA |
| LETANG, KRISTOPHER | D | PIT | 87/04/24 | $560,000 | $685,000 | $625,000 |
| KENNEDY, TYLER | C | PIT | 86/07/15 | $550,000 | $550,000 | RFA |
| SABOURIN, DANY | G | PIT | 80/09/02 | $500,000 | $525,000 | UFA |
| TAFFE, JEFF | L | PIT | 81/02/19 | $500,000 | $800,000 | $800,000 |
| JAMES, CONNOR | L | PIT | 82/08/25 | $475,000 | $475,000 | |
| NHL totals | | | | $40,249,200 | $51,394,200 | $47,425,000 |
The 07-08 numbers should all be pro-rated based on the amount of time that player will spend with Pittsburgh. As you can see I released a few players, assumed Gary Roberts would retire and signed the proper players to new contracts (the numbers in bold). Again, I don’t claim any of this to be accurate but I don’t think it’s too far off. Whether or not the team will want to spend close to the cap remains to be seen. Even if they do signing Hossa does put Pittsburgh at risk once Malkin’s new contract kicks in which will have to be in the neighborhood of 8-9 million. I think Pittsburgh will try to sign him and perhaps the lure of playing with Crosby and Malkin on a team that will be competing for the cup every year will be too much to turn down, wishful thinking I know, but it’s pretty clear that re-signing him was not the initial goal anyways. The goal appears to be this year’s playoffs and a trade like this tells everyone that the team wants to win right now. So the big question is whether or not Hossa can make the difference.
Hossa’s “career” in Pittsburgh started rough as he only lasted 10 minutes in his debut before a knee on knee collision sent him to the dressing room and forced him to sit for 8 days. He finally returned on the 16th at home against the Philadelphia Flyers where he had a goal and an assist with a +2 rating. This, of course, was without Crosby who continues to rest his high ankle sprain. Hossa didn’t line up with Malkin, as expected, but seemed to bounce between lines as is typical for Michele Therrien, the Penguins coach. One line that did seem to show some serious potential had Staal flanked by Dupuis and Hossa. This line continues to show up occasionally and seems to have a great balance of solid play in their own zone with the capability of producing scoring chances at any time. In the following game Hossa finished with 5 shots on goal and an assist in a game where the Penguins played poorly against the New York Rangers. In his third game he played nearly 20 minutes, his most since coming to Pittsburgh, but failed to register a point. His lack of points that night had everything to do with Mike Smith, Tampa Bay’s goalie, making 6 or 7 mind blowing saves in the third on nearly every Penguin. Hossa could have , and should have, easily finished with 2 or 3 points.
So far, Hossa seems to be settling in quite nicely even without the guy who will ultimately be feeding him the puck during the playoffs. He’s shown that he can play on nearly any line and has shown flashes of the brilliance for which he’s been heralded. When Crosby returns, which should be next week, we’ll finally get to see how this experiment/gamble paid off. One things for certain, if the Penguins win the cup no one will question the trade, but if they struggle and are then unable to re-sign Hossa, the hockey world will be anything but forgiving.
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