Pittsburgh Penguins May Have Made it Difficult for Tampa Bay to Sign Meszaros

THN.com posted an article prior to the Tampa Bay Lightning signing defenseman Andrej Meszaros claiming that the Pittsburgh Penguins may have caused a slight snag in their plan to acquire him.

Although they ultimately signed Meszaros, speculation is that it was difficult because they didn't have a 2009 third-round draft pick that would allow them to sign him to an offer sheet, so they attempted to re-acquire the third-round draft pick from Pittsburgh which was part of the deal made with them in June for the negotiating rights to Ryan Malone. However, Pens GM, Ray Shero, did not want to have anything to do with a restricted free-agent offer sheet; and because of this, Tampa Bay attempted to finalize a trade for Meszaros with Senators GM Bryan Murray without a first, second, and third-round picks necessary for an offer sheet to work - thus, the "slight snag."

And with the Bolts scurrying to sign all the available Penguin forwards, it seems they forgot they needed to address their defense (which could be viewed as another way the Penguins could have thrown a monkey-wrench into TB's plans since they may have dealt Daryl Sydor if it weren't for Ryan Whitney's surgery -- they were waiting to see what route Whitney decided to take which my have taken longer than anyone expected and, ultimately, took Sydor off the trading block which would've probably been an easier deal to be made being without a third-round draft pick).

Luckily for Tampa Bay, it all worked out in the end and Pittsburgh still has the 2009 third-round draft pick (they made Shero the GM for a reason)!!

GO PENS!!