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amen

I concur.

@Axl Warpshaft which was purely a PR stunt--they knew the Pirates weren't for sale and ended up announcing the Pens were for sale a few years later.

@Axl Warpshaft Where to begin? First of all, like I said, the team has never been for sale under Bob Nutting. He's maintained from Day 1 an insistence that he will leave the team to his children. Second, also alluded to (receipt below), they were within a few years of exploring sale of the Penguins. Who sells the Penguins to buy the Pirates? It makes no fiscal sense. Third, especially if they had no thoughts of selling the Penguins at the time (Why would they after back-to-back Finals, unless they thought the team had blown its window?), the value of the Pirates had risen so much by that point that I question where they'd have gotten enough liquid cash to purchase controlling interest of an MLB team. Fourth, a combination of 1 and 3: The Pirates were committed to a plan (albeit early stages) that was clearly going to deliver the best on-field product in a generation. Think what you will about Nutting, but even if he ever considered selling, he's definitely not going to sell low. Fifth, and most important, if someone's serious about any acquisition of a company, talking about it in the press is the absolute best way to ensure it won't happen. We have seen that repeatedly with Jim Balsillie and the NHL, and I forget the name but there's some other jabberjaw who recently talked about trying to buy or start an NHL franchise and got black-balled. Why? Because unless it's publicly traded and they're trying to inflate the stock price for maximum cashout (when both sides have an agreement in principle already), the company will dislike the press and all that accompanies it. That totally muddles negotiations and causes internal and external headaches throughout the company--everyone wondering what this means for their jobs and how their lives or business could otherwise be disrupted even by the effect of rumors about a sale--let alone serious negotiations. Though I've quibbled with every Pens GM's moves here and there, the Lemieux Group was never going to be stupid enough to jeopardize negotiations like that if they were actually serious about buying. A potential seller never takes kindly to that, especially when the press (right or wrong) is immediately panning the seller even more than the pariah Nutting already was. Nope, not confused one bit. They announced intent to explore selling the team in summer 2015: www.nhl.com/news/penguins-morgan-stanley-to-review-strategic-options/c-769803

crazy, best NFL game ever

@@surbloh his3 point shooting was the difference

Especially given where scoring was in the NHL the season he hit 95.

Only because it's an extremely difficult league for small markets. The Pirates are likely to see the window open in 2024, maybe surprise in 2023.

Anyone's going to be better with Jagr, but I think that's overstated. When he played without Jagr in Pittsburgh, they usually had him fill a much more defensive role, which he was also good at.

@@closethockeyfan5284 Anyone accept the Washington Capitals with Jagr. Its too bad it didn't work out for Jagr in washington. Imagine if he stuck around there and played on a line with Ovechkin? If he stayed a couple more years we could have seen it.

Given the (appreciated!) disclaimer of not knowing baseball, please don't perpetuate the yinzerism that Nutting is the problem. No matter what some billionaire looking for an easy PR move (punching the Pirates while they're down) will tell you, they're not seriously interested in owning the team and wouldn't run it any better--because they too would prioritize profit over wins. The real problem is that MLB's economics blatantly favor large markets at the expense of small ones. Just look at the LCS participants of the 21st century. Occasionally there's a Tampa Bay or a Kansas City, but the vast majority have been the large markets.

@Atheos B. Sapien This is more accurate. People often don't realize he actually didn't play on the same line as Jagr very much. He was most often with Kovalev and Lang.