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Penguins circling a defenseman and a forward

February 28, 2023, 5:49 PM ET [502 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Let’s fire up the recent Penguins rumors, shall we?



The Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks recently engaged in trade discussions centered on J.T. Miller, the standout Canucks forward who tallied 99 points last season, two league sources told the Post-Gazette.

Per one of the sources, trade talks between the Penguins and Canucks reached an impasse. But they could be revisited prior to Friday’s trade deadline.

The Penguins have quietly explored moves big and small to attempt to bolster their roster for this season and beyond. They have also inquired about Arizona Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun, one of the top players on the trade block.


While I’m not bullish on Jakob Chychrun because of the potential asking price and my desire to focus on fixing the forward/goaltending issues he is the better of the two options here and it isn’t close. Chychrun’s value is his 4.6M cap hit which is definitely lower than his actual value. He also has two more years of term. Perhaps you get the Coyotes to eat some of the salary and now you have a legit top four defenseman (top pairing if everything goes well) for dirt cheap. Teams will have to pony up for that kind of sweetheart deal.

I’m wondering if while the Penguins are looking at Jakob Chychrun they might also look into Karel Vejmelka to help with their ongoing goaltending issues. Vejmelka is signed at 2.75M for the next two years. By acquiring Vejmelka you might not feel as desperate to extend Tristan Jarry for a big contract considering his injury issues and inability to give them quality starts in the playoffs the past few years.



The issue with Vejmelka is assessing just how good he is. He obviously plays for a horrendous team with minimal help. Is this driving the numbers down. His excellent start percentage is really great. There’s a ceiling with this player. Consistency is the issue. The bet would be a better team can get more consistent results out of him. No sure bet, he’s a goalie after all.

Another variable in dealing with Arizona is their ability and willingness to eat money. It would cost more draft capital, but that's the team to target if you want to dump your bad contracts.

As for JT Miller his contract extension hasn’t even started yet. It is for seven years at an 8M cap hit. His cap hit for this season is a reasonable 5.25M. The contract extension is rancid. While Miller would no doubt improve the Penguins forward depth I don’t even know how this conversation continues without the Canucks eating 50% of the deal. It would be absolute insanity for the Canucks and Rutherford to sign this deal and then before it starts eat half of it. I had interest in JT Miller a year or two ago when he was on his current deal. I don’t see a path forward now that he signed the extensions he did. I want nothing to do with it. I want nothing to do with Ron Hextall adding a contract that will likely be around eight years longer than him.

Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!
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