The Penguins aren’t keen on having Jake Guentzel playing center and filling their third line center role. That much is obvious. It means Riley Sheahan will have to do so until a trade is made. A name to think about is Jean-Gabriel Pageau of the Ottawa Senators. According to Elliotte Friedman the Penguins are looking hard at him.
Pageau is signed for two more years after the 2017-18 season at 3.1M. This is exactly the kind of contract you’d like to seek out if you are the Penguins. Pageau isn’t known for his physicality. He’s going to be more on the skill side of things which is the side I think the Penguins should be looking for. Contract is in the right price point and style of play more or less is what the team should want. Is he good enough?
Well, the underlying numbers aren’t the greatest.
It’s only a 12 game sample, but here are his entry/exit stats
Exits is kind of a plus. He is able to exit the zone about half the time, but when he does it is normally with full possession and not a chip out. That would work well with a player like Phil Kessel on the wing. Perhaps lacking in the entry area can be remedied by having other players do it for him.
Now Ottawa doesn’t have the forward talent that Pittsburgh does, but they do have Erik Karlsson and a few other players that are really good, namely Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone. There are some potential team effects at play and switching teams might provide a boost, but it is no guarantee because the numbers in Ottawa have been getting worse, not better. Here is some more context
Playing on a mediocre team you can understand how it could have a negative impact on possession and offensive production. What isn’t a great sign is that relative to his teammates on a mediocre team he has progressively gotten worse the past few years. The relative numbers shouldn’t be in a nose dive like that. Or at least you don’t like seeing that happen.
His offensive peak would be what you want to get out of a third line center on the Penguins given that they would be attempting to create as many scoring lines as possible. Even Sidney Crosby is struggling with his 5v5 points per 60 this year so I don’t know if coming over to the Penguins is going to boost Pageau’s numbers a ton.
The cost to acquire would also be an interesting variable. Remember, this is the team that was rumored to be apprehensive about giving up Cody Ceci in a Jonathan Drouin and Taylor Hall deal, yikes.
The contract is perfect, but the cost to acquire and playing sample has some real question marks. It’s clear that the third line center market is limited and this may be a situation where beggars can’t be choosers. The gamble is that Pageau’s numbers would go up significantly from where they are in Ottawa right now. I can see a scenario where not playing with Tom Pyatt and Cody Ceci would boost those numbers. By how much? I don’t know. This rumor comes down to cost to acquire and that is a wild card as well. I wouldn’t invest heavily into Pageau because I see more risk than reward.
At the end of the day I think I’d rather keep playing Guentzel at center than trade for Pageau. Bryan Rust will be healthy and that will help out the forward depth a lot. I think it would also be easier for Rutherford to find a winger than a center in this market. Regardless of my thoughts I do think it is clear that the Penguins want to trade for another center. Pageau is one of the few apparently available.
Thanks for reading!
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