The big-three era in Pittsburgh ended, after Jordan Staal was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes, where he will join his elder brother Eric.
The Penguins traded center Staal for the No 8 pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, center Brandon Sutter and defenseman Brian Dumoulin. Moving Staal, who had 50 points in 62 games last season, breaks up the Pittsburgh trio at center, who along with captain Sidney Crosby and 2011-12 League MVP Evgeni Malkin has been a matchup nightmare for opponents.
"When you are acquiring an elite player, you have to give a lot for it, and we did," Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford said.
"We paid Pittsburgh a good price. We love Brandon Sutter. He's been a very good player for us and he's a great career ahead of him. Dumoulin is another one, coming out of Boston College -- a good, young defenseman. This was certainly a very fair hockey deal."
"I believe this improves our team," Rutherford added said.
"Name me two or three other players, (centers), who are like Jordan Staal? You just can't find them. I don't think it is a timing thing or a bold move -- it just happened that he was available to us and we were able to make the deal."
Jordan, who reportedly turned down a 10-year deal from the Penguins forcing the franchise's hand to trade him, will now play with his brother Eric; both of them were the second pick in 2003 and 2006 respectively.
With the pick acquired from the trade, the Penguins selected defenseman Derrick Pouliot from Portland of the Western Hockey League.
"My feeling on Jordan Staal is I didn't want to trade him," Penguins general manager Ray Shero said after announcing their 8th pick.
"I said that, and my goal was to try and get him to sign a contract extension with the Penguins and how far could we go with this three-center model that we had remained to be seen, but I'd like to that. It just became more apparent as we talked about it internally. I've talked to Jordan for six years and had a great relationship with him and his family. It just felt like the right thing to do."
"I always felt that up until at some point today that Jordan was going to be back with us next year. We've had a great relationship and he was a very important player for our team.
"A couple teams were pretty aggressive today, one being Carolina. We just felt as an organization that Jordan is at the point of his career where it is time to really take the next step in his development and the Carolina deal really made sense with the assets we got in return.
"It was a fair deal for both parties."
Shero said Sutter, who had 17 goals and 32 points in 82 games the previous season, was the key to the deal. Sutter has two more years on his deal, with a salary cap hit of $2.066 million, saving the Penguins nearly $2 million for the coming season.
"We've got three centers. We got Brandon Sutter, and with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, that is three really good centers.
"That's the strength of our team. We're looking for Brandon to being a big part of that. It was pretty important to me in building this team to have a young center like that to put with Crosby and Malkin. It makes our team a good team still and in the future moving forward."
Staal, who has just one year to go on his current deal, incidentally was at his own wedding, where he married his fiancée Heather in his hometown Thunder Bay, Ontario, when the deal was announced.
