The Pittsburgh Penguins are eventually going to shop for a top four defenseman. I know that Jim Rutherford wants to see how the youth is going to play out, but that isn't looking very promising.
On the flip side Pittsburgh's forward depth has never been better, at least in recent memory. Logic dictates that you trade from an area of strength in order to improve an area of weakness.
I made a comment on twitter last night that drew the attention of TSN's Travis Yost
This reminded me of another tweet I read from Mike Colligan a little over a week ago
Dustin Byfuglien is certainly going to be no stranger to trade rumors this year as he is a pending UFA.
OK, so what does something like this look like? Let's take a look at Winnipeg's projected roster according to Left Wing Lock
There are some issues to point out about the Jets forward ranks. Evander Kane is no longer with the team which leaves them short a top six left winger. Drew Stafford is a right winger. That is where he played during his entire Buffalo Sabres tenure and where he is most comfortable. Alexander Burmistrov has clever hands but those hands have yet to produce tangible offense at the NHL level. His career 5v5 points per 60 is a very paltry 1.20. That is comfortably fourth line level stuff.
So let's bump Stafford to the right side and replace Burmistrov which leaves a top six left wing position open.
On the defensive side of things Jacob Trouba is ready to slide into a bigger role on the team. One that won't be available with Byfuglien still on the team. Both are right handed defensemen who like the right side and can play on the power play.
Now onto the Pittsburgh side of things.
David Perron is a left winger on a team that is finding out it has forward depth to spare. Perron is a good top six winger. His underlying numbers are solid and I believe his late season slump in 2014-15 could be traced to injury (specifically broken ribs). I believe that David Perron should be the front runner for the left wing spot on Sidney Crosby's line at the present moment. However, with that said he is still a movable part for the Penguins.
Sergei Plotnikov, Beau Bennett, and Daniel Sprong are all performing at quality levels during this preseason.
Daniel Sprong is the big surprise because he is legitimately putting the Penguins in the same spot that Olli Maatta did just two years ago. He is playing great hockey and forcing the team's hand.
Pittsburgh also has Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis that can move up and down the lineup in a pinch. That might not sound like an ideal situation, but I would argue that Pittsburgh's current top four defense corp. is even less ideal.
How close are David Perron and Dustin Byfuglien in value? Let's look
Perron is comfortably a top six winger
Dustin Byfuglien is comfortably a top four defenseman and I would argue his offense pushes him towards a low end top pairing guy.
Here is a comparison of both players in the 2014-15 season
Something to keep in mind with that Bombay chart is that David Perron is a full time forward which lends itself to better offensive numbers while Byfuglien played forward until Late November/December before switching back to defense in 2014-15. This skews the numbers in Perron's favor a bit but the ~25 games of Byfuglien at forward limits that impact a little bit.
Here is how each player has performed in the roles they have been given in recent years.
Since Perron's concussion issues which caused him to miss 72 games in 2010-11 he has been getting better with each season. Byfuglien has been very steady and near 0 which means he is performing at the level that is expected of him in the role he is in. Byfuglien is also 30 years old and will start to see decline in the next few years or so.
While I think Perron's value at his position is lower than that of Byfuglien's it isn't way off either. Perhaps a player like Adam Clending, who has also looked good for Pittsburgh this preseason, can be used to make up some ground.
David Perron is a UFA after the season, but Winnipeg has the cap space to keep him around if they want to make a run at him for an extension.
Dustin Byfuglien is also a UFA but this would be strictly a rental for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Byfuglien will command too much money and too much term in his next deal.
Last and certainly not least the NHL is a salary cap league. Dustin Byfuglien makes a sizable amount of money. Can this even work from a cap stand point?
The money could work for Pittsburgh if it is something they really wanted to do. David Perron makes 3.8M and Dustin Byfuglien makes 5.2M. Pittsburgh has right around 2M of cap space with 11 forwards, 8 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders signed. This does not include Eric Fehr's 2.0M being put on LTIR to start the season. That LTIR would allow cap wizard Jason Botterill more time to find some extra cap space through interesting roster maneuvers. It would also allow Jim Rutherford some more time to figure out other ways to create a bigger buffer from the cap ceiling which was an issue last year. The obvious candidate to create this space remains Rob Scuderi, but Chris Kunitz could be a part of this as well.
This idea is some food for thought because Pittsburgh isn't going to solve their top four defense problem internally. They definitely to go shopping at some point. They might as well do it early in the season and trade from a position of strength.
Thanks for reading!
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