Pens wrong-trade draft picks & go all-in now
Pens #Pens
PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The trade deadline is next Friday. The Pens currently sit outside the playoffs. What will they do?
They have pennies available under the salary cap and are sliding in the standings. Listen to any of the former Pens players on any 93.7 The Fan show, they all say this team needs to make a few moves to shake things up.
What could they possibly do? Any trade would be a like player for a like player. There is something they could do, but Ron Hextall has said he won’t do it.
Trade your first-round pick, trade multiple picks. Go for it.
When you made the decision to give Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, even Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, long contracts you decided you were all-in now. Continue with that theme. Don’t stop two-thirds of the way through it.
The Pens need to really go all-in.
You didn’t bring these superstars back to rebuild. Any meaningful change to this roster is going to cost you draft picks. You don’t have much in the minors other teams are interested in. Why are the top picks for the next couple of years untouchable?
If you think Jeff Carter sucks and want to help your third line, to bring in a player to make a difference, you’re going to have to sweeten the pot to drive that salary off your books. Use those picks.
If you could package, for instance, Jeff Petry and Kasperi Kapanen and a few draft picks, you might get some meaningful change that is younger and more cost effective. What is key for the precious few non-playoff teams is that draft collateral. They aren’t going to take on your unproductive players without something in the future for them.
For the next three seasons, first-round picks, any picks, should be available to trade. You’ve decided to win now, give these all-time greats some more help. Your core stars, with the exceptions of some inconsistencies from Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel, are having really good years. Plus Jason Zucker, on the final year of his contract, has finally become the player you traded for. You are going to waste it because of some policy of giving up draft picks?
Most likely you don’t want to give up the draft selections because you want to play to win now, yet build for the future. In a league with a salary cap so low, you can’t do that. The odds are so slim, let’s just call it impossible to win now while building for the future.
So instead of wasting a last potential run with Crosby, Malkin and Letang also knowing Guentzel will be a free agent in 2024—really go all in.
You can help this team right now-any picks over the next three years should be available. Wipe them all out if you have to because after the next three years it’s over anyway.
See if this rings a bell for you. A Pittsburgh team with an aging Hall of Famer and a couple of other really good players decides it’s playing to win every year. They really should have gone all-in a few years ago, but with few exceptions kept to their way of winning right now and in the future. What’s happened is a team that was a borderline playoff team with no chance to really rebuild because they never got bad enough. Instead they are middle of the pack and with mid-first round picks the risk is great and the impact is significantly less on average.
It’s not apples to apples but close enough to learn from the Steelers example. They tried to approach it as being able to win every year. Like the Pens, even if they’ve reached the post-season recently they’re out after a week.
Who cares if you don’t have a first-round pick for the next three years. Jim Rutherford was right, burn them all.
The window is rapidly closing, you can help prop it up by mortgaging the next few draft years. Do it.
Who cares if the Pens win 10 games in 2027 because of these moves. When the Pens have built their Stanley Cup teams they did it after years of horrible hockey. They turned those top of the draft picks into gold. All of a sudden, this same franchise is scared of losing in the future.
Now wonder this team plays not to lose, their example comes from the front office.
It’s time to play to win.
Aggressively use those picks to improve now. There is no playing it both ways.
If you think saving those picks means you’ll have a Stanley Cup team waiting when Crosby retires, you’re horribly mistaken.
Go for it now and take your lumps in the future. That’s a far, far better plan than thinking you can have it both ways.
You have only a few days—you owe it to your Big 3—go for it.