Sunday, January 27th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
The Beech is back
One of the most maligned players of the past 10 years of Penguin history is returning to The Igloo. Kris Beech who, along with Michael Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk, was traded to the Penguins for Jaromir Jagr was picked up off of waivers by Ray Shero on Saturday. Beech, a center, last played for the Washington Capitals and will be in a Penguin uniform when the team returns from the All Star break.
Beech’s game is a defensive, play-making oriented one. He does not really score goals, but, according to TSN, “makes his linemates look good with his creativity” and “has a defensive conscience.” In other words, Beech is a pretty boring hockey player.
The only issue with signing Beech is that the Penguins had two players like that in Ryan Stone and Tim Brent and chose to send them back to the minors yesterday. A Kris Beech will not provide the sparkplug to carry a team, but a Ryan Stone or a Tim Brent might when they are called up from the minors, just as Colby Armstrong did two years ago and Tyler Kennedy did to some extent this season.
Shero’s logic of wanting an experienced, tough, defensive center to hold down the fort until Sidney Crosby is healthy again makes sense, but the Penguins do not need grittiness in lacking Crosby. They need points, something that Beech will more likely than not fail to provide.
Pleasant surprises have occurred before, but I think that there are better places to look for one than Beech, who will only remind fans of one of the worst trades in franchise history every time he sets his skates on the ice.
2 Comments
January 28th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Wasn’t one go round with Kris Beech enough?
January 28th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Yes. For an optimistic viewpoint though (HA!) he had 5 goals through 20 games this season . . . that projects to about 20 goals a year, but to think that he could keep that production up is absurd. Kris Beech is just not a very good hockey player.
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