Such a strange situation, this team needs left-handed defense, and yet this team has money galore wrapped up in left-handed defense.

On top of all that, the main unrestricted free agent, non-Yevgeny Malkin,

that they need to be wrapping up is a left-handed defenseman who's still not wrapped up.

Good morning to you. Good. Tuesday morning, I'm Dan Kovachievich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Penguins. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates in the same place that you found this.

Ryan Shea is not going to be one of those players where you can weigh him casually by his statistics.

But if you wanted to do just that, you could get away with it.

Shea's plus 30 rating was the best on the Penguins roster by a mile.

Parker Watherspoon was second at plus 17.

Everyone can state casually who was the Penguin's highest scoring defenseman.

That of course was Eric Carlson with 66 points.

Did you know that Shea was second?

Yeah, he had 35 points.

Chris LaTang had 34.

And I say all that while feeling the need to remind that this isn't exactly an offensive defenseman.

Shea put himself into this position.

His teammates love him for it, by the way.

They saw the work that he did. They saw the investment that he made in his preparation, into his frame, into everything

he'd need to do to achieve, you know, a season like this.

Is he perfect? No. Is he an All-Star? No. Is he super crazy

physical? With his 6-1-200-pound frame, also no. Has he been a really good hockey player

to use that term again? At a position of need? Very much yes. So why isn't? He signed. His most recent contract,

...