The Pittsburgh Penguins are finally returning to game action today after completing their bye week. Today they play the Tampa Bay Lightning at 5PM. They are also being linked to some trade rumors in Colorado.
There are once again rumblings coming from Denver that the Avalanche are open to trading Matt Duchene and/or Gabriel Landeskog. According to one media member the Penguins are interested in Landeskog
I am going to attempt to do two things with this information. The first is take a glance at Gabriel Landeskog and who he is as a player. The second will be assessing on whether or not it even makes sense for the Penguins to be interested in such a player.
Gabriel Landeskog has been a solid NHL player during his tenure with the Colorado Avalanche. He was the second overall pick in the 2011 NHL draft and was eventually named Captain of Colorado. He is the youngest Captain in NHL history. Here are his career numbers
The difficulty in assessing a player like Landeskog is that he has been playing on one of the worst run teams in the NHL. The impact of playing on such a terrible team could suppress his potential impact. Because of his situation I have chosen to look at his relative possession numbers instead of his raw possession numbers. His first two years in the NHL he broke the 50% mark in possession. Since then it has all been below 50%, but that has been the case for almost all Colorado players who earned significant ice time.
Relative to his teammates Landeskog has been very good. He's a good player in a bad situation. Here is a visual to really drive home the point of how bad the Colorado Avalanche currently are.
It's a really pathetic situation. All evidence points towards what should be a gutting of the front office, but when you are dealing with a former player legend like Joe Sakic it seemingly makes it difficult to just rip the band aid off.
On the offensive side of things Landeskog has had years where he was great, but more recently he has seen his numbers dip each successive year. I decided to add a Penguins player who is consistently criticized for context.
Outside of the 2014-15 season Kunitz's offensive production is comparable or better than Landeskog. Chris Kunitz is 37 years old and Landeskog is still only 24 years old so I certainly don't predict Kunitz having the upper edge past this year, but if people aren't happy with Kunitz's production then Landeskog's current production isn't/shouldn't be acceptable either. Especially when you take into consideration the assets that you would need to move to acquire Landeskog.
So this is the point where I ask the question: Does having interest in Gabriel Landeskog make sense for Pittsburgh?
The 5.57M salary that Landeskog will command until 2021 is a significant part of the equation. That isn't chump change and attempting to acquire a player with that kind of cap hit will definitely alter the long term plans of managing the salary cap. His contract term is not an issue. He will only be 28 years old when his current deal ends. You would be getting Landeskog in what should be his prime years.
Long term Pittsburgh could definitely find cap space to make it work. Marc-Andre Fleury's 5.75M won't be around much longer and that contract alone could create the space needed. Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis could both be completely off the books next year. Rob Scuderi's buyout payment will end. Trevor Daley's 3.3M could also be moving on. Eric Fehr's 2.0M will likely be traded as well. The issue would be creating the short term cap space. The Penguins are up against it right now.
When I look at the Colorado Avalanche roster it is pretty clear that they need the most help at the defense position. In the scope of a Gabriel Landeskog trade that would probably mean an Olli Maatta based trade from Pittsburgh's end. I'm totally fine moving on from Olli Maatta in a trade for another impactful NHL player, but I'm not sure it needs to be at the left wing. Even if the Penguins move on from Chris Kunitz, who is still giving them at worst top nine level play, they still have Conor Sheary, Carl Hagelin, and soon Jake Guentzel. That isn't the sexiest group of left wingers in the NHL, but with the way the Penguins are currently constructed I don't have many doubts it would be an effective left wing group for the top nine.
To put things in perspective Landeskog's 53 points in 75 games last year had a points per game of 0.71. That is not a bad per game rate in the modern NHL. In Pittsburgh Conor Sheary has a 0.71 points per game this year at the time of writing this blog. Sheary has the benefit of playing with Sidney Crosby, but Landeskog's most common linemate in 2015-16 was Nate MacKinnon so it isn't like he had chopped liver.
In Jake Guentzel's first professional season he is second overall in the AHL with 38 points in 29 games. He added another three assists in last night's game.
As
I wrote the other day Carl Hagelin has a large career sample of posting top six caliber offense at even-strength.
I think escaping Colorado will be great for Landeskog and it is probable his offensive production would rebound if he left. Hypothetically, moving a player of Olli Maatta's caliber for someone like Gabriel Landeskog doesn't bother me at all. However, I am of the belief that Pittsburgh's biggest short and long term need moving forward (and what they should be focused on) is acquiring another top four defenseman and not another top six forward.
Currently, only one media member is tying the Penguins to Landeskog so there might not be any real legs to this rumor. Though it is always interesting/fun to dive into potential rumors when somebody of Landeskog's caliber is brought up. The Penguins returned the lion's share of their Cup winning roster so there haven't been many opportunities to discuss Penguins based player rumors this year. Whether or not the Landeskog rumors are valid this is the time of the season when Rutherford loves to make trades so we may be in store for more rumors in the near future. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading!
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