PITTSBURGH - The Pittsburgh Penguins spent three years dumping most of their name players because they couldn't afford to keep them. In only two weeks, they've replaced all those stars and added even more.

John LeClair, let go by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first wave of NHL salary dumping last month, signed a two-year contract Monday with Pittsburgh - the Penguins' fifth major player addition in slightly more than two weeks.

LeClair, at 36, adds an aging but established scorer to a radically reshaped team that was last in the overall 2003-04 standings but now has the look of a playoff team after acquiring offensive-minded defenseman Sergei Gonchar, the high-scoring Ziggy Palffy, goaltender Jocelyn Thibault and drafting top prospect Sidney Crosby. The team also signed another former Flyers star, Mark Recchi, a one-time LeClair linemate, before the labor dispute shut down the 2004-05 season.

LeClair was one of the NHL's top goal scorers over the last nine seasons, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound power forward who adds a physical presence to a team that badly needed one during three consecutive losing seasons from 2001-04. The five-time All-Star has 382 goals and 379 assists for 761 points in 873 career games.

"Obviously, with the excitement the team is generating, the possibilities are endless," LeClair said Monday. "It was the best fit for me personally. There's a lot of upside with what they're doing. ... And I was hoping to not have to go to a place where I would have to change my game."

General manager Craig Patrick said the Penguins likely wouldn't have gotten LeClair without adding the other pieces.

"Definitely, in John's case," Patrick said. "It's very special to get these kind of people - not just great players, but great people in the locker room."

Perhaps more than any other team, the Penguins have turned the economic advantages afforded smaller-market clubs by the new NHL labor agreement - especially the salary cap - into their advantage. Previously, they cast off players such as Jaromir Jagr, Robert Lang and Alex Kovalev because shrinking revenues forced them to cut their payroll.

The advantage to making all those cuts was that, once the NHL ended its long labor impasse, the Penguins had more than enough room under the salary cap to rebuild quickly.

"We were positioned well for what we had to deal with, and it's worked out very well," Patrick said. "For the first time around in this, it was hard to really anticipate what might happen, but we're very, very pleased."

LeClair spent 10 years with the Flyers, part of them as the left wing on the "Legion of Doom" line with Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg in the mid-1990s. He was to have made $9 million in 2004-05 in the final year of a five-year contract, or $6.84 million after the leaguewide 24 percent rollback, but was bought out for $4.56 million. LeClair and Tony Amonte were let go by the Flyers on July 23.

"I wasn't sure what I wanted to do then, there was some interest out there ... but I thought this was the best fit," said LeClair, who didn't say who else was interested.

Since the Penguins last played in April 2004, they have added two of the Flyers' top three scorers from that season - Recchi, who led the team with 26 goals and 75 points, and LeClair, who was third with 55 points on 23 goals and 32 assists.

Also Monday, the Penguins signed former Capitals and Blackhawks defenseman Steve Poapst and avoided contract arbitration with defenseman Josef Melichar, who agreed to a two-year deal that will pay him $700,000 this season and $750,000 in 2006-07. He has three goals and 10 assists in 168 career games.

The 36-year-old Poapst has only eight goals in 245 NHL games but often provides a tough matchup for opposing forwards and is strong on the penalty-killing unit.

Forwards Matt Hussey, Guillaume Lefebvre and Matt Murley also accepted the Penguins' qualifying offers of $450,000, if they play in the NHL. They would make less in the minors.