This news is a couple of days old, but I wanted to chip in my two cents regarding the news earlier this week that the Penguins finally got their new arena deal and thus will be remaining in Pittsburgh.

First, I'm happy for fans of the Penguins and in particular Pittsburgh hockey fans. It would've been a shame to see a city that's seen its NHL franchise go through so much in its history, from the highs of Mario Lemieux in his prime carrying the Penguins to Stanley Cup championships to the lows of bankruptcy and the selling off of its stars, to lose their team.

It would've really sucked to lose their team to a city where NHL hockey failed once before, where the only real selling point was its big, shiny new arena, where the team and it's history and budding young superstars may not have been fully appreciated.

It's going to come with a price to the local and state taxpayers, as building a new arena won't come cheap, but that's the price to pay to keep this franchise in Pittsburgh. The hockey fans likely won't mind it.

Mario Lemieux has saved the Penguins franchise several times since he was drafted in 1984, but it looks like this might be the last time, for having secured a new arena there's talk he might give up part of his ownership with the team.

Lemieux's been accused of greed for stretching out these negotiations, that the only reason he bought the team and came back to play was to get back the deferred payments owed to him by the previous ownership.

That may be, but if Lemieux didn't care about hockey, and in particular hockey in Pittsburgh, he could've sold this team out a long time ago for whatever he could get. Don't try to suggest that he wouldn't have received top dollar because of the lockout, because teams were being bought and sold before (Montreal, Ottawa, Buffalo), during (Vancouver) and after (St. Louis) the lockout.

Point is, Lemieux cared enough to find a buyer willing to keep the team in Pittsburgh, rather than taking the money from somebody else and scuttling away in the night.

The interest expressed in the Penguins from Kansas City and (it's believed) Las Vegas and Houston has me wondering if another round of expansion might be in the offing for the NHL.

Kansas City needs something to fill that new arena. Las Vegas is considered by some observers to be a major untapped market for a sports franchise, while the Edmonton Oilers nearly became the Houston Oilers almost ten years ago.

Even if expansion isn't on the NHL's agenda, it's possible a current NHL franchise not called the Penguins might pull up stakes and move to K.C. The Nashville Predators have popped up recently in relocation speculation. Some say the reason the Preds dealt for Peter Forsberg was to improve its chances for a Cup run and thus improve its gate, just as the Lightning and Hurricanes, who also play in what's been considered "non-traditional hockey markets", saw their gates improve after their championship seasons.

With the Penguins' future no longer in question, it now remains to be seen if the Penguins can afford to keep its current promising young roster together.