Starkey: Penguins not mortgaging future

I had no idea this town was so deeply in love with Simon Despres, to the point where dealing him seemed to prompt a mass Despres-sion.

I've already forgotten about him.

The notion that Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford has somehow mortgaged the future by trading Despres and a bunch of draft picks over the past few months strikes me as ridiculous.

First, look at the defense. Picture it two years from now. The Penguins could have an elite top three — Kris Letang, Olli Maatta and Derrick Pouliot — in place. The latter two will be 22 and 23, respectively. Letang won't yet be 30.

That would leave the Nos. 4-5-6 positions. You can fill those in a multitude of ways. The Penguins have some decent defense prospects. There's this thing called free agency, too.

Point is, the Penguins should be in a position where they won't miss Despres all that much even if he morphs into a top-four D-man. Which, at the moment, he decidedly is not. I'm convinced opposing teams would have circled No. 47 as an attack point in the playoffs.

I'm not saying the Penguins have an elite defense. The New York Rangers are the East's standard-bearer in that regard. But the Penguins got better Monday. Look at it this way: The Penguins essentially made the following deal for now — Robert Bortuzzo and Despres for Ben Lovejoy and Ian Cole.

Lovejoy makes this team faster. He's a right-handed shot. He's a solid defenseman. People probably still have a vision of his hideous turnover from the Flyers series three years ago, but he became a bona fide player (plus-30) in Anaheim. Cole is sort of a Despres-type in that he's a first-round pick who has not played to his pedigree. But he was having a decent season.

As for draft picks, hey, they're the currency of contenders these days. Everybody's all in. It's a sellers' market.

The Penguins aren't the only team that traded away a first-round pick this season — and they got a still-young, high-upside winger in David Perron. Nashville, Los Angeles, Chicago, the Rangers and Tampa Bay are among those who did the same. Rangers GM Glen Sather has traded four consecutive first-round picks, but look what he got: Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and Keith Yandle.

Second-round picks are even more popular. Some people were surprised Toronto was able to wrangle second- and fourth-round picks from the Penguins in exchange for Daniel Winnik.

To which I say, if you're overly concerned about losing second- and fourth-round picks, you either worry too much or still believe Shane Endicott has upside.

Thanks to the wonders of hockey-reference.com, I tracked every second and fourth round for the first 10 years of the millennium (2000-09). I wanted to find how many of the position players taken have played even 150 NHL games and how many goalies have played even 50.

That's a pretty low threshold.

This is what I found: Of the 331 players selected in the second round, only 27.5 percent (91) have achieved any kind of NHL success. I'm no Stephen Hawking, but I believe that's fewer than one in three. Of the 322 fourth-round picks, only 12.7 percent (41) made it even briefly.

So, no, I don't think Rutherford mortgaged the future.

I think, if I were a fan, I'd be pretty happy to have one of the many teams that's “all in.”

Joe Starkey co-hosts a show 2 to 6 p.m. weekdays on 93.7 FM. Reach him at jraystarkey@gmail.com.