The Pittsburgh Penguins are paying their lone visit to St. Louis this evening for a game that will be nationally televised on NBCSN.
During this game the Penguins will get an up close look at Kevin Shattenkirk who is the much talked about defenseman who is on the trading block. Shattenkirk is a very good player, the kind of player every team would like to have, but his long term future in St. Louis is murky due to a pending contract extension.
Kevin Shattenkirk is currently one of the best cap values in the sport. He makes 4.25M this year and will also command that figure next year. It is the years beyond that which have St. Louis hesitant. Shattenkirk will be 28 when he is up for a new deal and will be commanding some big money and term. He probably won't be far off from the eight year 56.0M range.
Here is why:
He is a well rounded player that is performing at a high level.
St. Louis is not a cap ceiling kind of franchise so they have to be more selective about throwing huge money deals around. They are already heavily invested in Vladimir Tarasenko (7.5M), Paul Stastny (7.0M), Alex Pietrangelo, (6.5M), Alex Steen (5.8M) and Jay Bouwmeester (5.4M). Jayden Schwartz is also up for a new deal at the end of the 2015-16 season and will be getting a raise from his 2.35M salary.
If the Blues aren't willing to extend Shattenkirk now is the best time for them to maximize his value on the trade market. The emergence of Colton Parayko makes trading Shattenkirk a little more palatable.
St. Louis isn't going to want to take on any players who are due for huge massive raises otherwise they would just keep Shattenkirk. They will either want a proven NHL commodity with term at a reasonable rate or they will want an NHL ready prospect that is cost controlled.
Pittsburgh has one of each of those. Patric Hornqvist is the proven NHL commodity that is cost controlled and Derrick Pouliot is the NHL ready prospect. While those two players may somewhat fit what the Blues are looking for I do not believe that Pittsburgh's pieces are strong enough to beat out other teams that will take a run at Shattenkirk.
Furthermore, I am not really sure the Penguins should deplete what is left of their tradable assets for a player that is going to be getting a huge raise on the cusp of his 30th birthday. The Penguins only have so many big contracts they can hand out and they have a player like Olli Maatta who will be looking for more money in his next deal. Pittsburgh has a few too many intermediate contracts that don't quite measure up in the value department such as, Trevor Daley (4.43M), Carl Hagelin (4.0M), Chris Kunitz (3.85M)and to a lesser extent Ian Cole (2.1M). Pittsburgh can't carry around that many overpriced intermediate contracts if they want to acquire another big fish.
There is no doubt that Kevin Shattenkirk would be a great addition to the Penguins blue line in the short term I just don't think the cost to acquire in addition to his upcoming contract extension make him a fit for the team.
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Derrick Pouliot was called up because Adam Clendening was traded away, David Warofsky was taken out by referee Tim Peel, and Kris Letang is nursing a short term injury. I would imagine that Pouliot is here to stay but who knows.
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Brand new Hockey Hurts Podcast discusses the David Perron/Carl Hagelin trade plus Derrick Pouliot. You can find that
here
Thanks for reading!
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