Penguins Rebuild Is Here, but There's Not Much to Trade
Even if they have tried to put it off for the past couple of years and even if they will not officially acknowledge it, the Pittsburgh Penguins have almost certainly reached the threshold of their rebuild. It might actually be officially underway, with last year's Jake Guentzel trade to Carolina being the starting point.
After failing to win a playoff series since 2018 and after missing the playoffs in each of the past two seasons, the Penguins spent the 2024 offseason making cheap, low-cost free-agent additions that could seemingly be used as trade bait while also essentially paying (the Kevin Hayes trade) for future draft picks. There was no big splash move or signing. They came into the season with unused salary-cap space, and they really didn't do anything to make the team meaningfully better.
The 2023 offseason, with the addition of Erik Karlsson, was their last big push at trying to compete and trying to win.
When that season failed, it was pretty clear that this nearly two-decade run of consistent success was over.
With a 6-9-1 start entering play through Monday and coming off an embarrassing 7-1 loss at home to the Dallas Stars, the Penguins continued that look to the future by trading veteran center Lars Eller to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday for a fifth-round pick and third-round pick, with the latter not being until the 2027 draft.
Earlier in the day on Tuesday, a report surfaced from Pittsburgh that pretty much everybody on the roster outside of captain Sidney Crosby is available for a trade.
Actually making trades might be easier said than done, and when/if they do happen, they are probably not going to bring back much in return.
How Did They Get Here?
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Before we dig into what the Penguins might have to deal, it is worth taking a quick look at how they got here.
After 17 years on top of the NHL, it was inevitable that they were going to take a step backward and need to rebuild at some point.
Nobody stays on top forever.
But while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang all got older and started to slow down (some more than others), this decline was not necessarily the result of organic progression and age.
Mistakes were made. A lot of mistakes.
As recently as the 2021-22 season, the Penguins had the bones of a damn good hockey team. Crosby, Malkin and Letang were still great, their 5-on-5 numbers as a team were excellent, and they even had some quality depth on the roster. But a couple of seasons (specifically the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons) were sabotaged by goaltending, and then they kept bringing the same goalies back without doing anything to meaningfully change the position.
To make matters worse, multiple front offices kept making a bunch of little mistakes that consistently added up to big mistakes.
Jim Rutherford did great things in Pittsburgh and built a two-time Stanley Cup winner. But he also spent the last two years of his tenure haphazardly turning over the roster without much of a plan and then became so preoccupied with trying to build a team that could beat up Tom Wilson that he strayed away from what made his team great (speed and skill). Then he abruptly resigned.
Ron Hextall did pretty much nothing right in his two-plus years and sabotaged the Seattle expansion draft by allowing both Jared McCann and Brandon Tanev to get away so he could protect Jeff Carter. Add in the John Marino and Mike Matheson trades (for Jeff Petry and Ty Smith), the bizarre Mikael Granlund trade and an obsession with having Kasperi Kapanen on his roster, and the asset/cap management was horrific.
Even just having McCann on the roster right now would be a significant upgrade.
Then came Kyle Dubas, who is currently running the team.
Dubas was given the difficult task of trying to look toward the future while also maintaining a competitive team around Sidney Crosby. He entered his first offseason in a pretty good position by not only still having Crosby, Malkin and Letang still on his roster, but by also having more salary-cap flexibility than the Penguins had been used to having in recent years.
He took a big swing on Erik Karlsson and not only managed to get him, but he also did so in a way that lowered the team's salary-cap number for the season and dumped several of the bad Hextall contracts on San Jose. There was still salary-cap flexibility to be had. But pretty much every move that was made alongside that one rapidly backfired and simply brought in more undesirable contracts, including Ryan Graves and the re-signing of Tristan Jarry.
From a hockey standpoint, a lot of the blind spots he had in Toronto (finding goaltending, filling out the depth around his top, core players) immediately showed themselves in Pittsburgh.
Everybody from the past five years has a hand in this roster and situation being what it is now.
There is no quick fix for it.
The Untouchable
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There is, realistically speaking, probably only one player on the roster the Penguins will not consider trading, and it also happens to be the one player who could bring them the biggest and most meaningful return. That, of course, is captain Sidney Crosby.
The only way he ever leaves Pittsburgh is if he marches into the front office and says, "Get me out of here," and that honestly just does not seem like something that is going to happen anytime soon.
Or ever.
He just signed a new contract extension with the Penguins, and he has to be smart enough to know what he signed up for when he did that. He saw the direction the offseason went. He saw the roster. He had to know the long-term outlook and what the next couple of seasons would look like.
As the Penguins keep losing you are going to be tempted to ask, "Well, what about Crosby here?"
You can ask it all you want. It is less than a one percent chance.
The Trade Restrictions and Bad Contracts
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One of the biggest obstacles for the Penguins in actually making trades is that over half of the roster has some sort of trade restriction in their contracts...or has a bad contract that will be nearly impossible to move.
Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson and Bryan Rust have complete no-movement clauses this season (Rust's contract loses the no-movement clause next season), while Rickard Rakell, Michael Bunting, Kevin Hayes, Noel Accairi, Ryan Graves, Marcus Pettersson and Tristan Jarry all have some sort of limited or modified no-trade clause.
Those are not dealbreakers by any means, and it does not mean that they cannot or will not be traded. It just somewhat complicates matters in making a deal, and that does not even get into the question of, "Does anybody even want some of these contracts?"
Malkin would seem to be the most likely player to remain in Pittsburgh after Crosby, just due to the legacy and the commitment to stay together as a duo and with the team after accomplishing so much for so many years.
Letang would seemingly be in the same boat, but he might be the one player in the big-three that might be open to a change. The issue then becomes is he still good enough at his age to justify the $6.1 million price tag that comes over the next three years? He also has full control over where (and if) he goes.
Pettersson is a free agent after this season and seems very likely to be moved, because there is really no need for the Penguins to re-sign him given where they are. He is not a needle-mover for immediate contention or a long-term rebuild, and he might actually have their most rental value. But do not set your expectations high on the return, especially given his play this season.
Karlsson would probably welcome a trade simply because things have not gone as planned in Pittsburgh, and as he continues to seek out the one thing his Hall of Fame career is lacking—a Stanley Cup. But trading him is going to be a challenge given that he is still owed $10 million per season for two more years. The list of contenders that can take on that contract is almost non-existent. The Penguins would have to eat a significant portion of it, get creative in getting another team involved, or take on another bad contract in return. Or perhaps even all of the above.
Jarry is pretty much untradeable at this point given his contract (three more full years after this at $5.75 million per year) and horrific play on the ice.
Rakell, Accairi and Graves would almost certainly require the Penguins to retain salary to move.
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The Realistic Trade Candidates
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When it comes to the players who could easily be moved without retaining salary, taking on salary, or getting trade clauses waived, the list is short and is pretty much limited to: Drew O'Connor, Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk, Blake Lizotte and Jesse Puljujarvi.
Eller was on this list, but he is already on his way out the door.
Beauvillier and Grzelcyk were two of the one-year stop-gap free-agent signings that were seemingly signed to see if Pittsburgh could pump up their value and turn them into a draft pick at the deadline.
Beauvillier has scored a few goals, but if he brings anything more than a late-round pick it should be considered a win.
Grzelcyk has performed so poorly that it's hard to imagine him having any value without a significant turnaround in the next couple of months.
The player who might have the most value here is probably O'Connor. He is off to a bad start, but he scored 16 goals a year ago, is one of the "young" players on the roster at 26, and costs less than $1 million against the salary cap.
But even then, you are still probably only looking at a return similar to what Eller brought back.
So while the Penguins might be motivated to sell, and while they might be finally looking toward the future, making impactful trades is going to be problematic.
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