It’s pretty unusual that a team with the 22nd-overall pick can end up as the big winners in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, but that’s exactly what the Pittsburgh Penguins did this weekend.

The Pens were already formidable coming into the draft. They finished last season with the second-highest point total in the Eastern Conference and were considered favourites going into the Stanley Cup playoffs. They are home to Sidney Crosby, the game’s best player, and Evgeni Malkin, who led the league in scoring and was named MVP earlier in the week.

So yeah, they’re pretty good. But following draft weekend they’re even better, and in a position to become the Miami Heat of the NHL.

With Crosby and Malkin ahead of him on the depth chart, centre Jordan Staal became expendable, particularly after rejecting a 10-year contract offer earlier in the week. So Penguins GM Ray Shero shipped him to the Carolina Hurricanes for 23-year-old forward Brandon Sutter – who has huge upside and will fit in perfectly as a third-line centre – and blue-chip prospect Brian Domoulin, who should be patrolling the Pens’ blue line for years to come. They also picked up the eighth overall draft pick in the deal, in which they nabbed one of the best defencemen available, sniper Derrick Pouliot.

That’s a great return for a player who clearly didn’t want to stay in Pittsburgh to be third fiddle behind Crosby and Malkin.

But Shero wasn’t done there.

He shipped Zbynek Michalek and his $4 million salary to the Phoenix Coyotes for two players and a third-round pick, and then he quietly used the 22nd-overall pick on bruising blue-liner Olli Maatta, a 200-pound 17-year-old who led all defencemen on his team in scoring last year and made the OHL All-Rookie Team.

So all in all, a pretty good day at the office for Shero and the Penguins.

And don’t expect Shero to stand pat during the free agent period that begins July 1.

By unloading Michalek’s salary and agreeing not to pay Staal, the Penguins find themselves in position to not only re-sign Crosby at $9- to $10-million a year, but to go after a big-name free agent on July 1. If they’re able to unload Paul Martin’s $5 million cap hit, they could realistically land both of this summer’s biggest fish – forward Zach Parise and defenceman Ryan Suter.

Parise, who’s had four 30-goal seasons and a 45-goal campaign, led the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup finals last season. He’s friends with Crosby and would love to have the flashy centreman dishing him the puck.

And Suter, who’s played his entire career with the Nashville Predators, is among the league’s elite defencemen, both offensively and defensively, despite being only 27 years old. He’s got a history with Shero, who was an assistant GM in Nashville when Suter was selected with the seventh overall pick in the 2003 draft.

Both players will receive plenty of offers, but will the money match what Pittsburgh could offer in terms of winning with regularity? With Crosby, Malkin, James Neal and Kris Letang already there, adding Parise and Suter would create the NHL’s version of Murderer’s Row. Throw in the fact that the team has one of the top goalies in the game in Marc-Andre Fleury and a good-guy coach in Dan Bylsma, and we may as well start signing over the bulk of the league’s team and individual trophies to the Penguins right now.

“I think we’re in a really good position,” Shero said about going after one of the big-name free agents. “I think we have a very good team. We’re well-coached, We’ve got great ownership.”

And with a stable of top-notch talent, a bucket of cash and a fistful of blue-chip prospects, they are poised to be the NHL’s best team for the next decade.

All that from the 22nd-overall pick.