Few teams in the National Hockey League have struggled more to start this season than the Pittsburgh Penguins.
They’ve sputtered out of the gates to a 6-9-2 record, good enough for 27th in the league, after the team tinkered with their roster this summer. General manager Kyle Dubas brought in a number of players on short-term deals, including defencemen Sebastian Aho and Matt Grzelyck and forwards Anthony Beauvillier, Cody Glass, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Kevin Hayes. Dubas and co. hoped these tweaks would be enough to complement their core, but that couldn’t be farther from what’s happened.
And on Tuesday, they flipped forward Lars Eller to the Washington Capitals for a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2027 third-round pick, culminating in the beginning of further changes to come. Dubas had reached out to other general managers, saying he was “open for business,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported, who went a step further in a 32 Thoughts column:
Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor are among those to follow. Pettersson deservedly gets a lot of attention, but O’Connor’s low number ($925,000) and flexibility makes him attractive, too. Last summer, Pittsburgh added. Months later, trading Jake Guentzel was the wakeup call, the sign Dubas felt it was time to follow a new path. What did Bill Parcells always say: “You are what your record says you are.”That’s not easy in Western Pennsylvania. In the Crosby/Malkin era, the Penguins never concede. Jon Snow does not bend the knee.Pittsburgh’s got good pieces with one more year — Noel Acciari, Michael Bunting and Alex Nedeljkovic — and other GMs know Dubas would like to take a few upper-deck swings, but is limited by both hard-to-move contracts and no-trade language.
Freidman also wrote about Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang are all players who are unlikely to move, and understandably so. The three have all recently re-upped contracts with the team, signalling they’re sticking around for whatever the future holds.
But Erik Karlsson?
Again, he’s got control. So it’s going to be up to him. Look at his contract structure, though. The salary drops from $11M now to $9M (2025-26), then $7.5M (2026-27), and San Jose has a bit of retention. A big chunk of next year’s money is a $5M signing bonus. He was traded from the Sharks to Pittsburgh on August 6, 2023, so, if a similar blueprint is followed, that’s even less of a financial commitment for an acquiring team.
It all begs the question: could the Oilers and Penguins make good trade partners? Absolutely it could.
The Penguins are a team looking to mix things up, while the Oilers are a team looking to add ahead of the trade deadline. Freidman noted the Penguins have reportedly set their preference in returns: “young NHL players, followed by already-drafted prospects, followed by picks.” Edmonton may not be in abundance in these areas, but they have some pieces they could swing.
Pettersson could be an interesting name. The 28-year-old left-shot defenceman has been a solid two-way defenceman, scoring career highs in goals (four), assists (26) and points (30) in 82 games last season. He’s started this year off strong offensively, with a goal and seven points in 17 games.
His underlying numbers are the best of any Penguins defenceman, with the team controlling 56.1 percent of the shot attempt share, 54.8 percent of the scoring chance share and 56.5 percent of the actual goal share, despite just 41.8 percent of the goal share — a number still good for second among their defencemen. He’s long been a solid top-four defenceman, and according to Hockey Viz, has contributed offence at an eight percent rate above league average this season, with defensive contributions and penalty kill work both at one percent rates above league average.
He’s in the final year of a five-year deal paying him $4.025-million, so the money could work. The big question is whether the Oilers would feel comfortable acquiring another left-shot defenceman.
If the Oilers are looking to add offence, what about Anthony Beauvillier? The 27-year-old has surprisingly bounced between five (!) teams in the last three seasons, inking a one-year, $1.25-million deal this summer with the Penguins.
He’s got offensive chops, putting up 120 goals and 251 points across 567 games and nine seasons, including as many as 18 goals and 40 points in a season. He’s racked up four goals and five points in 17 games this season, adding, as of the time of writing, a goal in Wednesday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings.
He’s a shooter of the puck, but his overall impacts have slid to that of a low-end fourth-liner, according to Hockey Viz. Still, given how much he’s bounced around, one has to wonder if that’s caused some issues. His best season from an impact perspective was in 2020-21, when he drove offence at a seven percent rate above league average, and defence at a three percent rate above league average.
Other forwards like Noel Acciari and Michael Bunting could make some sense for the Oilers, too, but, as Friedman highlighted, are tough with “hard-to-move contracts and no-trade language.
There’s always Jesse Puljujarvi, too. 🙂
Maybe there’s a deal to be made similar to the eight the Oilers and Penguins have done since 2000:
- July 26, 2019: Oilers trade John Marino for conditional sixth-round pick in 2021
- Feb. 27, 2016: Oilers trade Justin Schultz for 2016 third-round pick
- Jan. 2, 2015: Oilers trade David Perron for Rob Klinkhammer, 2015 first-round pick
- Jan. 17, 2009: Oilers trade Mathieu Garon for Dany Sabourin, Ryan Stone, 2011 fourth-round pick
- Jan. 26, 2006: Oilers trade Cory Cross, Jani Rita for Dick Tarnstrom
- Dec. 31, 2003: Oilers trade Pat Hughes for Mike Moller
- March 13, 2001: Oilers trade Dan LaCouture for Sven Butenschon
- March 14, 2000: Oilers trade Josef Beranek for German Titov
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
