Thumbs down to everything Vesey, up to Pens TSN's Dave Hodge tries to avoid “thumbs down” to everyone involved in the Jimmy Vesey affair while giving the red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins' deserving recipients a “thumbs up."

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I’m trying to find a way to avoid “thumbs down” to everyone involved in the Jimmy Vesey affair. I can’t.

David Poile has been an NHL general manager since 1982, so it wouldn’t sound right to call him naive. But I’m sure he will come to realize that he failed to follow certain truisms in his pursuit of Harvard college star Jimmy Vesey, and in his angry reaction to Vesey’s decision to choose free agency over a contract with Poile’s Nashville Predators.

For starters, a deal isn’t a deal until a deal is signed. No matter what was said back and forth between Poile and other Nashville reps and Vesey’s agent, father and the young player himself, the Predators could hope but should not have counted on Vesey until his name was on a contract.

If they truly held a spot for Vesey instead of making a deadline trade to improve their playoff chances, they were wrong to do so; wrong to ignore the chance that Vesey would not be theirs. The lure of free agency will dance in any player’s head until he shuts it out by signing on a dotted line.

Poile is critical of Vesey’s decision because it makes no sense … to Poile. Vesey is costing himself a chance to play in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs and to get a year closer to his more lucrative second NHL contract.

But Vesey has his own reasons for doing so, and that is allowed. They only have to make sense to him. Maybe he wants to play at home for the Boston Bruins. Maybe he wants to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who employ his father as an amateur scout. Maybe he wants to play for a team that hasn’t impressed him yet, because it hasn’t been able to talk to him yet.

And maybe he simply doesn’t want to play for Nashville. If so, he has probably known that for some time and can be criticized for leading the Predators on, as it were. But that doesn’t change the fact he has been free to make all the decisions he has made so far, and is free to make the next, and biggest one, when he picks his first NHL team in August.

Technically, he has 30 to choose from. Realistically, and unfortunately for Nashville, the number is 29.

March of the Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins are safely in the playoffs, it would appear, thanks to nine wins in their last 10 games and if “thumbs up” are in order, there are many deserving recipients.

The obvious ones are Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and coach Mike Sullivan. Normally, I’d be reluctant to include the general manager who made the coaching change from one Mike to another - Johnston to Sullivan - because it was Jim Rutherford who hired Mike Johnston. If you’re considered smart for firing the guy you hired, you’re breaking even, that’s all. But Rutherford can take a bow for another reason.

In the absence of Evgeni Malkin, a second line of Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin and Phil Kessel has been instrumental in most of Pittsburgh’s recent successful outings. It was Rutherford who traded for all three forwards. Separately, the transactions that brought Bonino from Vancouver, Hagelin from Anaheim and Kessel from Toronto brought a mixture of apathy, doubt and criticism. But once the three forwards became a unit, the trades put Rutherford in a new light. The Penguins, too, are seen much differently.

Where once a playoff spot seemed iffy, home-ice advantage in the first round is now possible. Those who hope for a Pittsburgh-Washington series in the second round do so with more than Crosby vs. Ovechkin in mind. Pittsburgh has become a legitimate threat to give the league-leading Capitals, or anybody else, a hard time.

I’d say the Pens need to be healthy, but answer this: Where does Malkin go if/when he returns? There’s Crosby’s line, and now Bonino’s line, and Matt Cullen centres an effective third line that does what third lines do. No room for Malkin? This is a dilemma that Sullivan will be happy to deal with, if the Penguins can play long enough to welcome back their … fourth-line centre?