Yesterday, the Penguins dropped a close one to the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1. The game went to overtime so Pittsburgh was able to salvage a point against a really good team even though Tampa started the game without Stamkos and ended the game without Kucherov. That’s not what I’ll be discussing today.
Does anybody believe Jim Rutherford is done trading before the deadline? I do not. So what’s next now that the Penguins have acquired Jason Zucker?
The Penguins have a lot of potential, but they need competent players to fill those spots, especially Dumoulin’s. Dumoulin's lacerated tendons put into question his quality of play upon return. It puts acquirng a left defenseman on the table. Also, it is a good idea to have some insurance heading into the playoffs even if Dumoulin is healthy.
The way the Penguins have deployed their defensemen in Dumoulin’s absence has been fine because the team has had their eye on keeping a Pettersson-Marino pairing together. As a result we’ve had a growing sample of Kris Letang and Jack Johnson. It is one thing to use this pairing to kill time during the middle of the season. It is completely another thing to leave it together heading into the final stanza of the regular season and potentially into the playoffs. Kris Letang needs to get it going again because contrary to the reports of Jack Johnson being better this year he is still sucks the life out of his partners. Even the best defender on the team.
Kris Letang away from Johnson is excellent. The Dumoulin-Letang pairing is a known commodity. With Johnson he is barely ordinary which is taking away one of the Penguins better weapons. This was fine for a bit, but the time to move away from this has come. Here are some other visuals showing the impact Johnson has had on Letang
If the goal was to find a sledding hill this would be a good thing.
So the issue is obvious and not debatable. Letang needs a better partner. It could come in the form of a Dumoulin return, but it would be great to have an insurance policy in case that doesn’t go to plan. This also assumes Pettersson remains a constant in the lineup.
According to Cap Friendly the Penguins have about 4.3M in deadline cap space this season and that is after the Zucker trade. They have some wiggle room. What they don’t have is a first or a second round pick so the kind of player the Penguins can target aren’t going to be high end or even medium high end. One thing we know about Jim Rutherford is he isn’t shy to trade or acquire for mediocre defensemen and hope the Penguins environment brings the best out of them. He has had mixed success with Justin Schultz and Trevor Daley who started very strong and then tapered off, but resulted in Stanley Cups. Hell, they won a Stanley Cup with Ron Hainsey living in his own end. Other veteran guys Rutherford has acquired to varying success have been: Ian Cole, Ben Lovejoy, Jamie Oleksiak, Mark Streit, Erik Gudbranson, Matt Hunwick and Chad Ruhwedel. So getting a depth defenseman is on brand for Rutherford. Given the Penguins draft capital I think the following two players are OK options. They both play for teams out of the playoff picture although it remains to be seen if the GM’s of those teams agree with that assessment.
I like the idea of Marco Scandella. He had some really bad seasons leading up to 2019-20, but he’s doing a good job this year in both his Buffalo and Montreal stops. Buffalo has been awful again this year and Scandella was having a strong year with them so I am encouraged by that. His numbers are actually a little down in Montreal, but still good. From Natural Stat Trick:
His most common partners this year have been Henri Jokiharju and Jeff Petry.
Scandella makes 4.0M and would fit under the 4.3M deadline cap threshold for the Penguins. He was acquired by Montreal for a 4th round pick and I would imagine a 3rd or 4th would be suffice to acquire him. Pittsburgh could handle the cost if need be. He’s a pending UFA and a straight up rental. He would provide insurance for Dumoulin/Pettersson, and I predict he would improve a bottom pairing with Justin Schultz if the team had the courage to sit Jack Johnson.
I have Brenden Dillon up there as well and I think he fits the bill for a Rutherford acquisition. He is a pending UFA who makes 3.2M so there is no problem there. His cost to acquire may be higher because of the lower cap hit and the fact he has played on a more successful Sharks team the past few years and those things can change perceptions of a player. His most common partner's have been Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson so this is why I think I'd rank Dillon lower than Scandella on the power ranking list of acquisitions. In theory he's had way better quality of teammate and the results have been meh. Did Burn's lose a step this year or has Dillon been a negative impact on him?
Alec Martinez is another player out there who will likely be traded. I don’t like him as an option for the Penguins as much as the two above.
The Penguins already have a Jack Johnson! The entire point of the blog was to replace Johnson’s role and Alec Martinez looks like he would be more of the same. No sense in taking the chance of going in that direction. Unless the Kings want to swap a one for one, which would be weird for them.
Long story short look for the Penguins to acquire some defense depth with the cap space they have to get some depth insurance in case Dumoulin doesn’t return to his normal standard or the Penguins have to absorb yet another injury. Jim Rutherford is never shy about acquiring depth defensemen.
Thanks for reading!
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