Matt Cooke

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that Penguins center Jordan Staal is experiencing setbacks with his foot, injured in game one of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens.

Staal was diagnosed with a lacerated tendon after Montreal Canadiens call-up P.K. Subban landed the blade of his skate into Staal's foot.

The Pittsburgh Penguins dipped into the free agent market yesterday and recruited the services of Arron Asham for the upcoming season. Asham signed a one-year deal with the Pens for 700K.

The question most Pens’ fans are asking about this signing is why. To some, this move is highly suspect. Fans obviously see that the most glaring hole in the Pens’ lineup is the lack of a top 6 winger to provide secondary scoring.

Arron Asham (RW) is a very tough guy. Logging 126 penalty minutes (PIM) gives a guy that type of reputation around the league these days. He works hard on the fourth line and can even do some damage on the third line as he does have a scoring touch (72 games, 10 goals, 24 points last year).

There are 63 days until the first preseason game for the Pittsburgh Penguins on September 22nd. 

Yes, I'm counting.

This has been the strangest offseason I have ever seen since becoming a hockey fan.

The anticipation of the new season is growing strong and now it's time to discuss who will show up for the Penguins.

One thing Ray Shero did this offseason was step up with the defense—big time. 

Which of the current Penguins can play top six roles?

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I follow fans of the Penguins on Twitter and have read countless articles as well as Q&A's from fans about the "revised" Penguins. 

Now as a fun use of free time, I'm going to give my opinions on questions a lot of Penguin fans want to ask. 

When about 15 minutes after noon went by, I refreshed twitter at work and saw about eight tweets discussing that Sergei Gonchar had been traded to Ottawa for a three-year deal. 

My immediate thought was "Our season is over." 

When the season ended, I immediately realized how many free agents we had. I knew we were going to lose players, that's a given. What I didn't expect was how many players we would be losing.

This whole summer I thought Gonch would be back, along with Eaton and Guerin. Now Gonchar is gone and Eaton and Guerin might be following suit.

It is probably the best week of summer if you're a hockey fan. 

This week is the week of every hockey fan's fantasy.  

It's time for the trading to begin and I for one am extremely excited.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really hoping that the Blackhawks finish it up tonight. Not only because they are my favorite team in the West,—and the fact that I couldn't stand to watch the Flyers hold up the Cup that the Penguins had held up a year ago—but also because I'm ready for this book to be closed. 

If you're like me, you have been miserable watching round after round without the Penguins in it. If you're like me, you have watched old games from last year's playoffs, where you got chills from watching how passionate the Pens were.

In a salary cap world, it’s pretty much impossible to keep a team together for more than a year. The Penguins early exit of the playoffs has put pressure on the administration to get a team together to win another cup, and another, and another.

Let’s take a look at the players with contracts up.

UFA: