The Pittsburgh Penguins got their man. They acquired quality depth forward Daniel Winnik from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto gets a 2016 2nd round pick, a 2015 4th round pick, and *drum roll please* Zach Sill.
Additionally Toronto is picking up 50% of Winnik's salary to make the money work.
I have written about Daniel Winnik multiple times in the past few weeks. He is a good depth forward and will most definitely help out the Penguins forward ranks. He should slot in on the third line and join the penalty kill as well.
Giving up draft picks isn't really a big deal when you haven't been trading away any of your higher end prospects.
Rutherford has given up a lot of picks, but he's also retained Pouliot, Harrington, Dumoulin, Bennett and Kapanen. Best prospects intact.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_Trib) February 25, 2015
Here's the deal with draft picks, they are pretty useless on their own unless you are in the 1st round. They are like lottery balls, the more you have the luckier you can get. If you aren't in a situation where you are collecting a ton of them it makes little sense to hold out hoping and praying that your 4th rounder is going to buck the trend and be a regular NHL player.
To get a real sense of how valuable NHL draft picks are you can read Steve Burtch's excellent piece at Sportsnet. You can find that here
So while I am totally fine with what the Penguins have spent to acquire Daniel Winnik I will also argue that using analytics could have saved Pittsburgh a lot of time and assets.
Winnik didn't sign with Toronto until late July last year. His underlying numbers are similar to what they are now. This is a very good example of what using the numbers can do for you. Get ahead of the curve, don't chase it. This way you can acquire depth players and keep some more of your draft picks.
So, are the Penguins done? I wouldn't take anything a General Manager says right now at face value. The fact the Penguins got the Leafs to take on 50% of Winnik's salary is the kind of move that opens the door slightly for other moves. I'm not predicting more moves, just that the door has not completely closed regardless of what is said.
I'm still not sold on either of the Penguins bottom six centers but the best way to hide bad centers is to give them the best possible wingers. Today's deal was a step in that direction.
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