There can be no more emphatic endorsement than the one Penguins GM Jim Rutherford gave Marc-Andre Fleury.
"As long as I'm the general manager, he'll be our goalie," Rutherford said last week.
That's bold. That's firm. That's reassuring. It's also borderline crazy.
Rutherford was an NHL goalie, so he understands the need for confidence and a comfort level in someone who plays that nerve-wracking position. He doesn't want Fleury to get sidetracked thinking about what might happen when his contract expires after this season.
But why make such a strong commitment now? Fleury was fine last year in the playoffs. He was shaky in the two prior postseasons, to the point that backup Tomas Vokoun was deemed the better option in 2013.
Fleury has the 2009 Stanley Cup on his resume but that was a long time ago. The Penguins have been passed by other organizations, and one of the reasons is the sub-standard goaltending they got in two years that should have represented prime time for this organization.
Another reason the Penguins have slipped is the salary cap has been tilted severely toward the top. The Penguins pay the stars, which doesn't always lead to a lot of balance to fill out the rest of the roster.
Their is no current heir apparent to Fleury in the organization. No doubt that heightens the urgency to get an extension done. But there's a lot of talent scattered throughout the NHL, and there are a lot of capable goalies who could improve their situation by coming to Pittsburgh.
There's a lot to like about Fleury. He's a hard worker. He's a great teammate. He's never thrown other players under the bus, even when they deserved it. If you don't think that goes a long way toward keeping the peace on a team, you weren't paying attention when Tom Barrasso played here.
Fleury's a reasonable person. He's not the type of player who would go elsewhere just to get a small bump in salary. By most accounts he's happy here, which means he probably never lets his radio drift over to sports talk.
Maybe it makes perfect sense to re-sign him. It doesn't make a lot of sense to make that commitment in October, though.
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--FASHION NEWS
Look for Pitt to start having undefeated seasons and constant sellouts now that the script logo has been restored to the helmets.
The script was banished about 15 years ago as part of AD Steve Pederson's failed quest to ditch "Pitt" as an identifier and replace it with the more formal, "Pittsburgh."
Like Todd Graham, that was a huge mistake. People see the university and its teams as "Pitt" and they like the script on the helmets. The only thing sillier than the long-standing dust-up over the helmet adornment was the administration's long-standing refusal to change, even though it was clear what fans wanted. (There's no denying the undotted "i" is abundantly cool).
The script is back. Can the glory days be far behind? Or at least the days when a win over Akron at home was considered a sure thing?
On another superficial fashion note, whatever happened to those satiny jackets that baseball players used to wear? Now MLB has players and staff outfitted in officially-licensed downscale hoodies.
The World Series managers look like they're in a sandlot tournament.
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--BIG HEADED
If San Francisco's Bruce Bochy can manage to win a third World Series in five seasons, it will give him a new baseball identity.
As things stand now, he's best known for having the biggest head in MLB. He wears a size 8 and 1/4 cap, which is just a couple of notches below the one the Pirate Parrot wears. When Bochy was traded, he would take his helmet to the new team for a fresh paint job because nobody ever had one that big in stock.
His nickname with Houston was "Headley," because baseball players never let a physical abnormality go unexploited.
That tendency was demonstrated when Joe Oliver (briefly a Pirate) played for the Reds. Oliver also had a large head, which led teammate Aaron Boone to ask someone, "What would you rather have: a million dollars or Joe Oliver's head filled with nickels?"
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