|
Blockbuster trade a grand slam for the Penguins |
|
|
|
|
|
This is why you go out there and hire Kyle Dubas. This was the kind of roster transformation people were hoping for when he left the Maple Leafs and joined the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this summer. Erik Karlsson is now a Pittsburgh Penguin and will join Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang.
The trade was a master stroke. It is one thing to acquire a player coming off of a major award like the Norris Trophy. It is another to do so in a way that not only gets the player, but undoes most of the bad decisions from the last guy in charge as well. The trade, as speculated, involved a third team and allowed the Penguins to dump off a lot of their bad contracts. Here is the trade which brought Erik Karlsson to the Steel City.
The first round pick the Penguins away is conditional. It is top ten protected. This was the best asset the Penguins gave away and even that came with favorable conditions for the team. The Sharks retained 1.5M. One has to assume if they went a little higher the top ten protection would have disappeared.
The Penguins don't have a lot of quality prospects. Owen Pickering and Brayden Yager were not included in the trade and the Penguins retain their last two first round selections.
The Sharks straight up took Mikael Granlund so that mistake is in the past. No buyout, no cap retention, one of the dopiest trades in recent memory for the team is history.
The Sharks also took on Jan Rutta’s cap hit which was a redundant addition to the lineup which ate away at the limited cap space the Penguins had
Jeff Petry, who was mostly fine as a Penguin, will be heading back to Montreal. The Penguins will eat a little bit of cap 1.562M for the next two years. They will also provide Montreal a second round pick. This was the price of doing business and clearing out Petry’s 6.25M spot in the lineup. One that is being replaced by Karlsson. Petry’s cap hit had to move. He had a NTC and didn’t want to be on the west coast. Dubas found a spot willing to do this necessary piece of business. The Canadiens also received Casey DeSmith’s 1.8M cap hit and former draft pick Nathan Legare.
One could argue the Canadiens did better than the Sharks in this trade.
This is a grand slam of a trade for the Penguins. The Penguins have one of the coolest and most entertaining players of this era of hockey now. Winning another Stanley Cup Is still going to be a herculean task, but the team is a hell of a lot more watchable than they were last year. Things should be really entertaining.
Karlsson will come in and quarterback the power play on day one. Kris Letang has done a good job over the years. Erik Karlsson is one of the best to do it. Kris Letang will also for the first time in his career get some help so not everything will fall on him and will hopefully give him some room to breath. This will help both players maintain a quality level of play further into their respective careers.
The true value of this trade is the impact it will have on the Penguins even-strength play. Out of Karlsson’s 101 points last year, yes 101. Only 27 were on the power play. He had 20 goals and 74 points at even-strength last year. He was tied for third overall in the league with... Connor McDavid. Only Nate MacKinnon (77) and David Pastrnak (76) had more than Karlsson. The next best defenseman was Vince Dunn at 49 points. Top three on the Penguins were Sidney Crosby (66), Jake Guentzel (50) and Evgeni Malkin (47). Given Guentzel’s injury this trade will help mitigate some of the offense the Penguins will have lost.
Kyle Dubas improved the bottom six from last year through defensive means. The team should be better territorially than they were. Offensively, there weren’t a ton of improvements made in that area. This is also why the Karlsson trade is so important. It is a very unique way to juice up the team’s offensive performance while still improving on the fringes of the roster. Without the Karlsson trade this approach would have left me fairly underwhelmed. With the Karlsson trade things are way more palatable.
This is a really exciting trade for the Penguins and one Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris letang deserved as we head into the final years of their era. Penguins have been spoiled for a long time and will continue to be for at least a few more years. If nothing else the team will continue to be fun to watch which is all you can reasonably ask for in these later years.
Erik Karlsson is a Pittsburgh Penguin and it is pretty awesome.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»