Dreger on Ehrhoff contract, Pens' hunt for top-six forward

Darren Dreger was on Montreal’s TSN 690 on Tuesday morning.

On if the Pittsburgh Penguins are looking to retain Christian Ehrhoff, or if he’ll hit the market and collect another huge payday this offseason:

“Well hey, when you allow the players to bolt and you move the players that Jim Rutherford did, defensively speaking. There were a lot of questions that swirled around the likes of Niskanen, obviously Orpik – go down the list of some of the good defense that have made up the Pittsburgh Penguins’ contending teams over the past number of years. And you bring Ehrhoff in on a shortened look. But I’ve got to believe that Jim Rutherford, when he brought him in, was thinking exactly that – what do we have to lose? If this guy rebounds a little bit – not a lot, it’s not like he’s been shaky over the past number of years – but I think he needed to sort of redefine his game, if you will, find his form. And when you’re playing on a team as deep as the Pittsburgh Penguins, maybe that goes hand-in-hand.

“But you get a paid look at him on a short term, but I think the Penguins have seen enough that they’re going to want to keep this guy. The question is whether or not they’ve got the financial resources to do so, because as we’ve reported and talked about in the past, they look at what they need up front. This isn’t about building a future in Pittsburgh. This is about winning a Stanley Cup this season. And Rutherford is very much on the hunt, particularly right now with Dupuis out long-term, for a top-six forward. So he does have some flexibility financially because of the LTI on Dupuis, but he’s got limited dollars to spend and he’s going to have to use them wisely.”

Source: TSN 690/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey