Whatever expectations you had about a potential John Marino trade, I’ve got some bad news. Your expectations are not going to be met. The Penguins have traded John Marino in what is a glorified cap dump
Yep, that’s it.
I was certainly open to trading John Marino. He isn’t a player who is off limits. I was expecting him to be used in a package to acquire a player who could immediately help the Penguins. This looks like what a Brian Dumoulin trade should look like, and because it does, I think this is not a good showing of asset management. I fail to accept this is the best they could do in a John Marino trade.
Marino as a player has plateaued since an impressive rookie season. A rookie season that had Jim Rutherford jump the gun on a long-term extension at 4.4M. Marino hasn't lived up to the cap hit, although he was playing his best hockey since his rookie season towards the end of this year. Going from Marino to Jan Rutta is a downgrade and the team is not better for it at the moment.
Ty Smith has had a rough go of things so far in his NHL career. He has also been playing on a bad Devils team which wasn’t helping his cause. To this point he is a lottery ticket who the Penguins don’t have to monetarily invest in.
Rumor has it Ty Smith, even though he is left-handed, has played some on the right side. If you want to look at things glass half-full you are hoping he follows a path similar to Mike Matheson has as a Penguin. For now, I think keeping expectations low is the prudent path. This trade is a cap dump for now.
This trade will be judged more on what the Penguins plan on doing with the cap space they are creating. There could be multiple moves to get to the final destination. There kind of has to be because they have 9 defensemen on the roster right now. It better be part of a plan to acquire a notable forward because if it is just to re-sign Evan Rodrigues this doesn’t make the team any better. These are the types of decisions they need to nail because there is no wiggle room to be wrong.
In this present moment I am very underwhelmed by the trade. We are going to have to see what other moves are made in concert with this one. If they pull off getting a dynamic player and the cap space from this trade is used for it then it makes things easier to digest. Even if it does play out that way, I think they could have done better with moving Marino.
Re-signing Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Bryan Rust was necessary for the team to move forward with the intention of winning. They did a great job accomplishing this first step. The other steps matter, too.
Thanks for reading!
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