Pittsburgh Penguins right wing Bill Guerin answers a question during a news conference at the NHL hockey Stanley Cup finals in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, June 3, 2009. Guerin received the cut on his forehead while playing the Detroit Red Wings Sunday, May 31, in game 2. The Penguins beat the Red Wings 4-2 Tuesday. The Red Wings lead the series 2-1. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
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Now that the Penguins have officially stepped away from Bill Guerin we can now start officially wondering about where the well-traveled veteran scorer will play next, if anywhere at all. The recon on Bill Guerin is simple. He turns 40 in November, he’s played for 18 seasons in the NHL with eight different teams. At one point, he was the NHL’s fastest skater but those years are behind him, as are his years of scoring 30-40 goals. Now he’s a 20 goal scorer at best and has the veteran savvy to get around.
Last season he appeared to struggle at times while on a line with Sidney Crosby and while most anyone in the NHL will find it hard to keep up with Sid the Kid, Guerin appeared to lag behind. Where does Bill Guerin’s future lie in the NHL? There are a few teams that could stand to use a guy like him, some that he might be familiar with already. By the way, any team with cap issues is being tossed aside so save your Bruins rumors for someone else. Here are five teams that could be a good landing spot for Bill Guerin.
Buffalo Sabres
Buffalo has been more than quiet this off-season. Aside from signing Jordan Leopold, Shaone Morrisonn and Rob Niedermayer the Sabres haven’t gotten much going for them in free agency. The Sabres are putting their hopes on Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek returning to high levels of play as well as hoping for Tyler Ennis to emerge as a scoring threat as well as continued solid play from Derek Roy. Adding a veteran like Guerin to the team would give them more consistent depth on the wing and provide yet another guy that can score. Getting Ryan Miller all the help he can can only turn out to be a great thing for a team that seemed like they would make a run last year only to see the goals dry up in the playoffs.
St. Louis Blues
Admittedly this is a huge long shot as the Blues appear to be done in free agency and their lines all appear to be squared away. What the Blues are is very young and a veteran who is familiar with St. Louis (he played there for half of the 2006-2007 season scoring 28 goals in 61 games) could be a difference maker. Guerin could give the Blues that one added dose of scoring and leadership, something could help put them in the playoffs in the very difficult Western Conference. He wouldn’t necessarily have to be on the top two lines in St. Louis and that kind of veteran depth would be huge for a team that has just four players over the age of 30.
New York Islanders
The Islanders are another one of Guerin’s former haunts, playing there in the 2007-2008 season and half of the 2008-2009 season before being dealt to Pittsburgh. The Islanders need... A lot of things and a winger that can score is definitely one of them. Once you get past Matt Moulson and Kyle Okposo, the Islanders situation on the wings is sketchy to say the least. The Islanders seemed to enjoy having Guerin on Long Island and even made him captain while he was there. Guerin could slot in as a second line wing which might be pushing the soon-to-be 40 year-old’s limits for use. That said, Guerin’s 21 goals last year for Pittsburgh would’ve put him third on the Islanders.
Colorado Avalanche
All right so this is a real stretch but hear me out. The Avs are still dealing with getting two of their restricted free agents signed (Peter Mueller and Chris Stewart) so dipping into the unrestricted free agent pool isn’t on their mind. The team will be getting power forward David Jones back from injury but they’re losing Marek Svatos. While Svatos’ drop in offensive output was a source of frustration for the Avs the last few years, Guerin would provide them with a veteran presence on a team that is extremely young at forward. Guerin would also provide consistent production regardless of what line they had him play on, something that this young team could definitely use going into a season where success might be harder to come by now that they’re not flying under anyone’s radar.
Atlanta Thrashers
I didn’t really think of the Thrashers as a possibility initially. Then we found out about how GM Rick Dudley wants to use newly acquired Dustin Byfuglien on the blue line and turn him into an offensive force from the blue line instead of from the front of the net. While that puts a lot of hope on the Thrashers youth to step up in camp and win a job to fill out the forward spots, Guerin could jump in right away and provide instant production and consistency. With all sorts of young talent in Atlanta, Guerin’s presence could work out huge for a team that could be an instant threat for the playoffs with all the changes they’ve made in the off-season.
As always, this is just a guessing game for now but it’s fun to scout around and see if there’s anything that immediately jumps out as a possibility. Of course, it’s also possible that Guerin will take the struggling free agent season to mean that it’s time for him to hang it up and retire. Judging from what we’ve seen from him, he can still make things happen out on the ice, just at a bit of a slower pace.