Categories: PenguinPoop

Penguins Update: Rating Ray’s Trades

Recently, the Penguins Ray Shero was named General Manager of the Year. Long regarded as one of the top executives in hockey—if not the entire sporting world—it earned the popular GM some richly deserved recognition.

In light of the recent award I decided to compile a list of Shero’s major trades, along with (very) subjective grades. To qualify, players involved had to play at least one game for the Pens. The table doesn’t include the recent Harry Zolnierczyk for Alex Grant deal.

I apologize for the funky formatting.

Season	Date	Team	Acquired	Traded	Grade/Comment
06-07	July 19	Nashville	Dominic Moore, Libor Pivko	3rd round choice 2007	[B-] Depth move
	July 20	San Jose	Patrick Ehelechner, Nils Ekman	2nd round choice 2007	[D] Ekman fizzled
	Feb. 27	Minnesota	3rd round choice 2007	Dominic Moore	[B] Decent return
	Feb. 27	Florida	Gary Roberts	Noah Welch	[A] “Scary Gary” a gem
	Feb. 27	Phoenix	Georges Laraque	Daniel Carcillo, 3rd round choice 2008	[B] Bona fide heavyweight in BGL
	Feb. 27	Florida	Joel Kwiatkowski	4th round choice 2007	[C-] Kwiatkowski played one game
07-08	June 22	Atlanta	3rd round choice 2007	Chris Thorburn	[A] Great return for role player
	Feb. 26	Toronto	Hal Gill	2nd round choice 2008, 5th round choice 2009	[A] Gill shutdown defender
	Feb. 26	Atlanta	Pascal Dupuis, Marian Hossa	Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito, 1st round choice 2008	[A+] Terrific value for two so-so players and a flop
08-09	June 28	Tampa Bay	3rd round choice 2009	Ryan Malone, Gary Roberts	[B-] Two UFAs for a pick
	Nov. 16	Dallas	Philippe Boucher	Darryl Sydor	[B] Boucher underrated
	Dec. 19	St. Louis	Future considerations	Jonathan Filewich	[C] Filewich never panned out
	Jan. 17	Edmonton	Mathieu Garon	Danny Sabourin, Ryan Stone	[A-] Proven backup for minor leaguers
	Feb. 26	Anaheim	Chris Kunitz, Eric Tangradi	Ryan Whitney	[A] First-liner for injury-prone defender
	Mar. 4	NY Islanders	Bill Guerin	3rd round choice 2009	[A+] Guerin driving force for Cup run
09-10	Feb. 11	St. Louis	Steve Wagner	Nate Guenin	[C] Swap of AHL defensemen
	Mar. 1	Florida	Jordan Leopold	2nd round choice 2010	[B-] Leopold good down stretch
	Mar. 2	Toronto	Alexei Ponikarovsky	Luca Caputi, Martin Skoula	[C+] Everyone flopped
10-11	Feb. 21	Dallas	James Neal, Matt Niskanen	Alex Goligoski	[A] Classic Shero two-fer
	Feb. 24	Ottawa	Alexei Kovalev	7th round choice 2011	[B-] Can’t-lose deal
11-12	Nov. 8	Columbus	4th round choice 2012	Mark Letestu	[B-] No room for “Tester”
12-13	June 4	Washington	Tomas Vokoun	7th round choice 2012	[A+] One of Shero’s best
	June 22	Carolina	Brian Dumoulin, Brandon Sutter, 1st round choice 2012	Jordan Staal	[A+] Staal wanted out
	June 22	Phoenix	Marc Cheverie, Harrison Ruopp, 3rd round choice 2012	Zbynek Michalek	[B+] Nice return for “Zibby”
	Feb. 6	Anaheim	5th round choice 2014	Ben Lovejoy	[C+] “Reverend” played well for Ducks
	Feb. 13	Winnipeg	7th round choice 2013	Eric Tangradi	[B] Fair return for underachiever
	Mar. 24	Dallas	Brenden Morrow, 3rd round choice 2013	Joe Morrow, 5th round choice 2013	[B-] Overpaid but worth the risk
	Mar. 25	San Jose	Douglas Murray	2nd round choice 2013, conditional choice 2014	[B-] Overpaid but worth the risk
	Mar. 28	Calgary	Jarome Iginla	Ken Agostino, Ben Hanowski, 1st round choice 2013	[B-] Overpaid but worth the risk
	April 3	Carolina	Jussi Jokinen	Conditional choice 2013	[B] Can’t-lose deal