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Jim Rutherford makes his first trade to shake things up

November 14, 2018, 2:43 PM ET [114 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Trades were inevitable and we have our first one since Jim Rutherford expressed his displeasure with the lineup. Carl Hagelin is no longer a Penguin and Tanner Pearson is. The players were traded straight up. The Penguins are retaining a small amount on Hagelin’s cap hit and it evens out to both players being 3.75M against their respective caps.

Carl Hagelin’s tenure is a lot like the guy who acquired him. Blazing start which fizzled out over time. Hagelin was the H in the HBK line which was super fun to watch when it was running hot. After the initial success of that line Hagelin’s offensive production was never the same. The Penguins won another Stanley Cup with him injured/on 4th line. The last two years Hagelin came up way short with his offense production based on his quality of teammate. Rutherford finally got tired of waiting for the regression that never came.

The deal is understandable from both sides. Each player is struggling mightily in the 2018-19 season. Both players have shown to be useful in the past, both play left wing, both make similar money. This is pretty close to a lateral move for both teams. The hope is that each player snaps out of their funk ala the original Hagelin/Perron trade. Another similarity to the 2016 trade that brought Hagelin to the Penguins is that trade the Penguins traded away a UFA and acquired a player with a little bit of term left. Pearson has two more years after this one.

This is what Hagelin and Pearson have looked like the past few years at producing offense at even-strength.



You can see the struggle is real in 2018-19. Quality of teammate has been similar for each player. We know Carl Hagelin has played a ton with Evgeni Malkin and before that Phil Kessel. Tanner Pearson’s most common linemates in LA between 2015-18 have been Tyler Toffoli, Jeff Carter, Anze Kopitar, and Dustin Brown. He can’t claim bad linemates for that chunk of time. This year his most common linemates have been Adrian Kempe, Tyler Toffoli, and Jeff Carter so still not bad.

As far as the microstats go it appears Tanner Pearson is more of a shooter than a passer



That is fine if he’s with a center that can distribute. Let’s say he gets first crack at playing with Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, he might actually score more than one goal in a month and a half.

That said, Pearson has one assist so far this year. That is pretty bad with a 17 game sample. Even Daniel Sprong has quadruple the points as Pearson. This trade isn’t a slam dunk for the Penguins. It has the same potential that the original Hagelin trade had. A player with prior success struggling mightily regains their form in a new city. Now if Pearson is bad it won’t necessarily make things worse for the Penguins because Hagelin was also bad. Obviously, that doesn’t help the team compete now. It just means they didn’t get worse. Status quo isn’t exactly the point of making these trades.

This is the beginning of what I think will be more moves.

Thanks for reading!
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