Despite flop with Penguins, Eric Tangradi hasn't given up hope

The trade that brought Eric Tangradi to Pittsburgh occurred in February 2009, when Twitter was still gaining steam and social media was at least relatively new. Back then, Tangradi would routinely search his name to see what people were saying.

It wasn’t always good.

“I let the little things eat me up,” Tangradi said recently following an informal workout at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

Getting too wrapped up in the hype surrounding that trade — which was primarily a Chris Kunitz-for-Ryan Whitney swap with Anaheim — was something that changed the course of Tangradi’s NHL career, he admitted.

When Tangradi looks back at that trade, it’s hard for him to not feel a twinge of remorse. He wishes…