The Penguins have added even more depth to their blueline, this time with a player, much better suited to fill the role of Sergei Gonchar, in Paul Martin. Martin signed a 5-year deal with the Penguins, worth $25 million in total, a $5 million cap hit per season. Martin is known more as a good puck moving defenseman with some definite offensive upsides to him. He'll join newly signed Zbynek Michalek and an already decent cast of blueliners to help compliment Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.It was not a great year for Martin, who missed 59 games due to a broken arm, which he suffered in October, and that limited him to only 22 games in the regular season. In those 22 games, he picked up a pair of goals and 9 assists for a half a point-per-game average. In 2006, he had his career-high in points with 37 and that will likely be a mark he'll be aiming for in 2011, if not surpass it. I would peg Martin for about 35 points right now, just to be on the good side of safe.
This deal brings the Penguins numbers up to 18 players for $55.9 million, which is roughly in for 2nd place in the standings for cap space taken up, at the time of posting this. I still have a number of moves to input and blog about, since I took off for a couple hours, so we'll see how it all plays out from here. The Penguins should just be looking for depth after this move, which should come cheaper than these defensemen that they are signing.
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