He loves all of you and he wants in your pants, as well.

To claybars point – I think we’re starting to say Shero’s philosophy over the last few years begin to take shape. Lock up frontline talent and then rotate in young defensemen. I would expect Letang to be the only guy on the Pens back line who gets any sort of an extension, and then over the next 5-7 years we’ll see guys like Despres, Bortuzzo, Morrow, Dumolin, Puliout, Matta, and Strait rotate in behind them.

Rene Bidet and Thierry Tampoun.

And like it or not, Fleury has been positively embarrassing in the playoffs since their Cup run. Historically bad numbers.

Smile and say ooops…

Total troll stuff and he knows nothing about hockey, as well.

Please, go on — give me more of your amazing facts.

Regarding Staal — From a career standpoint, he’s now playing in a smaller pond. Had he stayed, he’d have spent the next ten years in the shadows of Cosby and Malkin. Assuming you have a job that you value at all, would you want to spend the rest of your career working within an organization where you’re all but guaranteed to never advance, particularly when you’re as young as Staal still is? Further, he has family in the Hurricanes system (Eric, Jared). Double bonus for him.

Regarding Bylsma’s comments following the Flyers series, you’re aware that there is a rivalry between the Penguins and Flyers, correct? Further, you’re aware that, aside from the Flyers winning, it was a pretty heated series, correct? Given that, what do you think he’s going to do in that situation — run up and give everyone on the Flyers roster and staff a post-loss hug? In the same sentence that he didn’t wish them luck, he explicitly congratulated the Flyers on winning the series – that’s enough in my books. If you’re soft enough to get bent out of shape because he doesn’t wish a rival team good luck after a series like that one, that’s on you – I doubt most Flyers fans lost sleep over it.

Regarding Cosby, there’s nothing to stick up for. The guy has more talent than anyone who plays for whatever team you’re into. There’s uncertainty in signing him for the duration they did, but that’s really all you can say about it.

Also, having lived in the Midwest for five years during graduate school and bounced around that area (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois), Pittsburgh’s about as “Midwestern” as Baltimore is southern — it’s definitely in a transition area, but that’s about it. If you want to get technical about it, it makes more sense to call it the worst city in the northern chunk of Appalachia (which makes it somewhat ironic that the rest of PA would be so eager to eschew Pittsburgh, given that northern Appalachia encompasses all of PA sans the southeastern quarter, as well as NY’s southern tier).