It’s getting harder to look around the league and ignore all the discussions about mid-tier defenseman and their asking prices.
A few teams continue to digest a steep asking price for Hampus Lindholm. There’s always wiggle room, but the current ask is a 1st, a 3rd and a top prospect. Likely some spin off from the Chiarot trade to Florida.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) March 18, 2022
Really?
The Ben Chiarot trade has set a market that can absolutely favor the Penguins if they attack it. There is a market inefficiency happening and the Penguins have multiple pieces that fit the bill for selling high. Ron Hextall needs to be aggressively shopping Brian Dumoulin, John Marino, Marcus Pettersson, and Mike Matheson. I’m certainly not advocating for them to trade all of them. Take the best offer for one of them. The Penguins are good enough back there. They’ve been outplaying teams for a while, but they can’t score. Their likeliest opponent in the first round are the New York Rangers. I don’t know about you, but outplaying teams in the playoffs and not being able to score has gotten stale. The last two games the Penguins were scraping for goals despite territorial advantages. The time is now to strike.
Could you imagine if Ron Hextall were able to acquire a 1st round pick for one of these defenseman? It sounds ludicrous until you see the Chiarot trade and the speculation surrounding other defenseman and their asking prices. Take another team’s first and then flip it. I’ll take is a step further. Flip the other team’s pick and also use your own 2022 1st round pick. Add Kapanen or a prospect whatever extra parts and go get a difference making forward. That is the team’s #1 need and it needs to be addressed. This is the window. This team has proven they are good enough to deserve an investment to see what happens.
The market is active enough. The Penguins, while not having a lot of assets, seem to have the ones in demand. Go do something.
Thanks for reading!