In the fallout from Friday's bizarre announcement that Shero was gone but Dan Bylsma was staying (for the moment), Penguins owner Ron Burkle apparently expressed regret that Shero traded Letestu to Columbus for a fourth-round draft pick in 2011.
Letestu is a serviceable, honest hockey player best suited for duty on a third or fourth line. When he was with the Penguins, he couldn't always fill that role because of the team's talent level. He was a tweener, a guy who always needed to keep a suitcase packed, along with an updated list of rental properties in Wilkes Barre.
He found a home with Columbus, where the top two centers aren't named Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. He would have fit on this year's Penguins, too, because too many of the last six forwards were players who didn't belong in the NHL.
But the trade was made in 2011. If it was a bad deal -- and it wasn't at the time -- does it offset in any way the positively lopsided deals that brought Marian Hossa, Pascal Dupuis, Bill Guerin, Chris Kunitz and James Neal to Pittsburgh?
If you want to complain about poor drafting, that's valid. Blast Shero for the imbalance of this year's team's forward depth chart. Make the case that too many no-trade clauses are a handicap in a salary cap system. Rail against the loyalty to Bylsma that resulted in last year's contract extension.
But the Letestu trade isn't even worthy of a mention in the context of his time as Penguins' GM.
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--WHAT GOES AROUND...
Sometimes wise parents caution their children, "Just wait until you have kids of your own."
The message is you'll see your own selfishness and misdeeds in a different context when the roles change.
Wonder if Mario Lemieux has that feeling when he sees his team captain/former boarder sulking and clearly unhappy with the way things are being run?
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--UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT
Even before the Penguins exited the playoffs, one of the players was blindsided by the cheapest of shots from 93.7 The Fan (KDKA-FM).
The afternoon Starkey and Mueller show featured a recorded skit that pretended to be a conversation between Marc-Andre Fleury and his sports psychologist. The premise was actually promising. Scripted comedy has to be better than so much of the stuff that fills time between The Fan's extended commercial breaks: too many snarling hosts raging, complete with dramatic pauses, in an effort to draw action from the redundant "Thanks for taking my call" people.
The fake Fleury bit was tepid, but it really failed when fictional Fleury made light of defenseman Rob Scuderi's nickname of "The Piece." Phony Fleury said something along the lines of now Scuderi is known as "the piece of (bleep)."
Ouch. How did he deserve that level of vitriol? Is Scuderi accused of murder, like Aaron Hernandez is? Did he rob pension funds like Denny McLain did? Did he steal a franchise from loyal fans like Art Modell did?
No, no and no. Scuderi's "crime" was playing at less than the level he's showed before in his career. For that, he gets excoriated in the vilest terms? Somebody needs to recalibrate their sense of proportion before the next attempt at comedy.
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