PENGUINS 101

With the trade deadline approaching, Penguins General Manager Ray Shero was working overtime locking up one of his own.

James Neal inked a six-year contract extension over the weekend that starts next season and pays Evgeni Malkin's right winger an average annual salary of $5 million.

Neal is only 24, so the Pens should have Neal locked up through his hockey prime, and his well-documented slow start in Pittsburgh at the end of last season showed no inkling of what was to transpire this season.

Neal, playing on a line with Malkin and Chris Kunitz, has a career-high 30 goals already, and he's helped elevate Malkin to the league lead in points (73) and the team lead in goals (33, five behind NHL leader Steven Stamkos of Tampa Bay).

"I like to shoot the puck. I like to put myself in a spot to score and Geno does the same thing, but can also pass the puck like no other," Neal said on the Penguins' official site.

Neal has honed his trademark one-timer with plenty of feeds from his creative center, and Kunitz' activity in front of the net has played a role in several more of Neal's tallies.

"You don’t want to forget ‘Kuni’ in there," Neal said. “He’s been a guy that’s helped this line tremendously and is in front of the net and digging loose pucks. … He’s helped the line out big time."

The Whitby, Ontario native made his first All-Star Game this year as an injury replacement. At the time, he had a league-leading 12 power play goals. His 13 scores with the extra attacker are still tied for tops in the NHL.

The Dallas Stars traded Neal to Pittsburgh nearly one year ago along with Matt Niskanen in a deal for defenseman Alex Goligoski, who has 25 points for the Stars this season. Neal started off ice cold in Pittsburgh with just one regular-season goal and two playoff points.

As bad as he looked last spring, he exploded onto the ice in the fall, setting the second-longest home scoring streak in Pens history behind Mario Lemieux with goals in Pittsburgh's first eight home games.

Saturday, he became the first Pittsburgh winger to score 30 goals since Alex Kovalev did it a decade earlier.

Neal was a second-round draft pick (33rd overall) of Dallas in 2005.  He's tallied 57 of his 193 career regular-season points this season.

Tags: Contract Extension, Hockey, James Neal, NHL, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Penguins

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