In the movie "Groundhog Day," Bill Murray played an slimy TV weather guy who found himself living the same day over and over and over again. Each day, Murray's character awoke to the same cheesy morning radio show and Sonny and Cher's hit, "I Got You, Babe."

No doubt, Rangers and Penguins fans can relate to the storyline.

On Monday, the clubs repeated their recent histories by agreeing to a lopsided eight-player deal that brought ultra-talented Alexei Kovalev back to the Rangers, who'd drafted him in the first round of the 1991 draft.

This deal was about money. It was about the haves and the have-nots. It was about the current state of business in the NHL.

Simply, the Rangers have money. A lot of money. The club is owned by a cable TV giant, Cablevision. The Rangers' corporate owner has extremely deep pockets and very long arms. Of course, a seemingly endless cash flow hasn't stopped Cablevision from running the Rangers, Knicks and other business interests into the ground.

The Penguins, on the other hand, don't have a dime. The club has made two trips to bankruptcy court in their 35-year history. Penguins icon Mario Lemieux fronts a group that owns the team. Lemieux was forced into the ownership business to save deferred money owed to him by previous ownership.

The Pens desperately need a new building to keep the franchise viable and are among the many teams that would benefit from a salary cap. At this point, there's no guarantee they will get either.

So, like Ron Francis, Jaromir Jagr, Darius Kasparaitis and Robert Lang before him, Kovalev left Pittsburgh because the team couldn't afford to keep him. Kovalev, who is making $4.6 million in the final year of his current contract, is eligible for arbitration this summer. An arbitrator almost certainly will bump his annual salary to the $7 million range. The Pens knew they couldn't sign that check, so they sold him at auction. As usual, the Rangers were the highest bidders.

Rangers GM Glen Sather packaged inexpensive spare parts Mikael Samuelsson, Rico Fata, Joel Bouchard and Richard Lintner to get Kovalev and overpriced spare parts Janne Laukkanen, Dan LaCouture and Mike Wilson. The player exchange saves the Pens approximately $5 million in salary.

Oh yeah, the Rangers also sent a cashiers' check in the amount of $3,999,999.99 to the Penguins.

Facing the media after the deal, Pens GM Craig Patrick sounded like a man headed for a firing squad. He tried to make the best of things, but the look on his face and the sound in his voice betrayed him. A two-time Cup winner, Patrick probably couldn't stomach the idea of selling Kovalev back to the Rangers. But, he had little choice.

Patrick did have one other option. He could have gotten a better player package from the Leafs, but the salary exchange wouldn't have been as lucrative. So, he (and Lemieux) opted for the money … and the weaker package of players from the Rangers.

Lemieux and Co. will have a hard time selling this deal to Penguins fans, who are tired of seeing their best players leave town over money. Already this season, despite another strong year from Lemieux, the Penguins are having a lot of trouble selling tickets. Like many teams, they've come up with all kinds of promotional ideas to get fans in the building. In fact, the club is even going through with its Kovalev bobblehead dolls promotion on March 6, when the Hurricanes blow into to town.

The best promotion for any team, though, is winning. After this latest deal, the Pens chance of doing that took a major hit.

Meanwhile, in Rangersland, the players were thrilled to hear about their new playmate.

"I'm fired up," said center Eric Lindros, who hosted a charity event at Madison Square Garden on the night of the big deal. "He's among the best players in the league. I think it shows that the organization is willing to do whatever is necessary to win."

"He's a great goal scorer," said injured winger Pavel Bure, who was acquired from the salary-dumping Panthers before last year's trade deadline. "I think it shows that the organization still believes we can make the playoffs."

In recent years, the Rangers haven't been shy about going after big-ticket players; their locker room is filled with them. Kovalev joins a group that includes Lindros, Kasparaitis, Bure, Bobby Holik, Brian Leetch, Mark Messier and Petr Nedved.

And, they've also had the financial wherewithal to acquire a $2.8 million goalie (Mike Dunham) to replace injured $4 million goalie Mike Richter as well as a disgruntled $3.3 million defenseman (Boris Mironov) as a depth player.

Still, despite all the money the organization has been willing to spend (some insiders say the club is on the hook for approximately $80 million in salary), the Rangers are on the verge of missing the playoffs for the sixth straight season.

Kovalev is a great addition, but he really isn't what the club needs to be successful. What they need is a strong system of play. This club has been at or near the top of the league in most goals allowed during each of the past three years. In this league, in this era of close, low-scoring games, teams must be able to fall back on a solid defensive foundation.

Just look at the Wild, who have as many wins as the Cup champion Red Wings and will likely make the playoffs this spring. The third-year expansion team, with a league-low $20 million payroll, adheres to the strong defensive system of wily coach Jacques Lemaire.

The Rangers, although loaded with dazzling stars, have no such dedication or system of play. Because of that, they rely too heavily on their goaltenders, who aren't good enough to carry that kind of load.

So, the Rangers add another big-money player and the Penguins sell off another star player they can't afford to keep.

It's just same day for these teams and their fans, over and over and over again.

E.J. Hradek writes hockey for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ej.hradek@espnmag.com.