First things first.
A player that I thought would help the Penguins (or any other team) is off the market. Sean Bergenheim and a 2016 7th round pick were traded to the Minnesota Wild for a 2016 3rd round pick. Minnesota did not have a 2015 3rd round pick due to the Dubnyk trade. While the Penguins could have hypothetically traded their 2016 3rd round pick for Bergenheim they don’t have the cap space to accommodate a player like him without first moving out salary. The Penguins are between a rock and a hard place right now. They have needs, but no space.
This was a really great trade for the Wild.
It remains to be seen what this will do to Daniel Winnik’s trade value.
Mark Acrobello scored his 4th goal in 6 games last night for the Coyotes. That gives him 12 on the year. He makes 600k. And yes he is a better option than Brandon Sutter. It would be harder to find players that aren’t.
To clarify, neither is great, but one costs peanuts and the other one prevents you from trading for a cost effective Sean Bergenheim.
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Apparently there are some Joffrey Lupul rumors to discuss.
From Elliotte Friedman on Sportsnet 960 radio:
Now, this year obviously another injury, and I think the Maple Leafs are in a position where they are trying to collect picks and assets as much as much as they possibly can, and Lupul is going to be in that conversation. I believe that Pittsburgh is in on this. It’s not easy for the Penguins, they are right at the cap, but they have some young pieces that would definitely interest Toronto, particularly on defense … Montreal, I wonder if they are back into it. They are still looking for some size and some wingers .. One of the teams I wonder kind of in a stealth way if they are involved in this, because they would be a team that would also need to clear some cap room to get it done is Boston. I’m there are some teams out West to, but those are three of the ones that might have a hand on this, and it would not surprise me if Pittsburgh was a team that was making a real push. He fits what they need which is a winger who can play on their top two lines.”
Joffrey Lupul has goal scoring ability but can’t ever seem to stay on the ice long enough to display it. He has a cap hit of 5.25M for 3 years after this season. He is also currently 31 years old.
As I said, offensively he is very good. He averages 25 goals and 52 points on an 82 game season. The problem is he will never play close to 82 games.
Possession is an issue here though. As I have stated before my rule of thumb when spending bigger money is that the player cannot be a poor possession player. You need to get something out of a player when they hit cold streaks on the offensive side. Everybody hits cold streaks, no exception. Good possession is the safe guard for a cold streak. At the very least you know the puck won’t be in your end and this will prevent goals while you aren't scoring them.
I do understand that playing for the Maple Leafs is a good way to lower somebody’s possession numbers but you can look at a player’s possession relative to his teammates. A lot of years Lupul is below average.
He is above the team average this year, but being above average on the 28th ranked FF% team isn’t anything to write home about.
Between Lupul’s age, contract term, cap hit, and possession numbers I feel as though there is more risk than reward for the Penguins.
And if you are a Game of Thrones fan can you really trust a Joffrey?
For me this is a pass.
Thanks for reading!
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