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Successful weekend and a look forward regarding trades |
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The weekend was a good one for the Penguins. They picked up a desperately needed four points over both the St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Blues was a must win given the quality of their team. Beating Tampa Bay is a solid win. Tampa doesn’t have the buzz they normally do. Nikita Kucherov is currently third in the league in scoring although you don’t hear his name pop up a lot. The team is sitting in third place in the Atlantic. They are still a quality side with big aspirations. Big enough to where they are taking some heavy, and when I say heavy I mean heavy, swings
I respect it. I think this is a crazy amount and I certainly wouldn’t have advocated for the Penguins to make this exact move. The part I respect is their self-awareness. They know and understand their window is now. They understand draft picks can be pretty overrated and they will use them to better their current product.
This weekend also saw Timo Meier’s time with the Sharks come to an end. He is now in the division. This was always a long shot for a team like the Penguins from an asset perspective. It was really a longshot due to the GM they have. I think they should have used their draft capital on a sure thing like Meier, or at least try. It doesn’t seem it was the case.
Another player moved this weekend, who I had planned on writing about this week, was Nino Niederreiter. I think an addition like Niederreiter would have been very helpful to the Penguins. A player with decent underlying numbers and an ability to finish. A perfect tweener top six/third line player. He only went for a 2nd round pick and he is not a rental. He carries a cap hit for 4M for this year and next. This was a reasonable way to spend a 2nd round pick.
What are the Penguins actually going to do? I can’t help but feel a James van Riemsdyk trade feels inevitable. I bet you can’t guess who gave him his five-year 35M contract with the Flyers. He wouldn’t be the most exciting acquisition. He would be an improvement to the winger depth on the team. It would be hard not to be considering what the group looks like.
JVR would be a rental. Hextall has spoken about rentals not being ideal. I believe that is within the scope of using a first-round pick. I don’t think rentals as a concept are a complete no go for the team. This is the type of move realistic for the management team in place. Trade deadline is Friday so we should have something trade related to discuss in the near future. I don’t think the Penguins still stand pat.
As for games the Penguins are back in action against the Nashville Predators tomorrow night. Another gettable two points against a team in sell mode.
Thanks for reading!
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