Jake Guentzel suitors lining up, examining potential trade possibilities

A look at what the Penguins might get for Jake Guentzel

Elliotte Friedman talked on Saturday night about Jake Guentzel, unsurprisingly listing several of the top teams in the NHL who are interested in acquiring the Penguins’ top winger.

The NHL Network also recently noodled up some potential trade scenarios across the league, where a package from Edmonton for Guentzel was floated.

Edmonton is in a “dollar in dollar out” situation, the inclusion of Warren Foegele is simply to balance out the money on the deal. Foegele, an impending free agent at season’s end, would likely part ways from the Pens at the end of the year.

That leaves the real return as the first round pick this year, a third next year and prospect Beau Akey, whom Edmonton drafted in the second round this past year. That would be a decent but not overwhelming return for Pittsburgh.

In that NHL Network piece, they also projected Vladimir Tarasenko to Vegas, which could easily shift towards Guentzel and Pittsburgh instead. Vegas gave up a second round pick plus young player Brendan Brisson, it might be more favorable to Pittsburgh to upgrade to Vegas’ first rounder and Brisson for a more intriguing return than the package from Edmonton.

When the Edmonton package went a little viral on social media over the weekend, many commenters were less than thrilled about the amount of talent that was heading back to Pittsburgh.

Welcome to being a seller, where teams have to accept fractional value for good players and hope the futures blossom into a decent return (despite the fact is very rarely works out).

As Friedman mentioned, the amount of teams with at least a baseline interest is going to be more extensive than just Edmonton and Vegas. Carolina typically does not operate to pickup expensive rentals, and are in the division, which might make one or both teams hesitant to complete a major trade with each other.

The dream scenario for the Pens would probably revolve around the one player that the Hurricanes would never trade to them: Martin Necas.

Carolina might not want to pay Necas, but they certainly aren’t going to hand him over to a division rival, or make that move for Guentzel without a contract extension in place. Thus would be a bitter pill for the Pens to swallow as well, having to live with knowing they gifted what already is a top team in the division Jake Guentzel for the long-term future.

Thirty years ago in the 1990’s, the NHL was littered with trades like a Necas-for-Guentzel type of swap; like when the Pens traded Mark Recchi and a first round to Philadelphia for Rick Tocchet, Kjell Samuelsson and a Ken Wregget. That is the type of blockbuster deal between rivals that can only be dreamed about or remembered these days, the modern climate and more financial-revolving world where salary cap considerations run deep make it all but an impossibility. But it would have been a nice type of trade to dream about.

Vancouver under Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin are never shy about making big swings, but have already traded away their 2024 first round pick in the deal that netted them Elias Lindholm. The Canucks’ 2022 first rounder, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, has been making waves in Sweden and would make a good starting point from the Pittsburgh perspective if Vancouver was serious about throwing all their chips all the way in this season in an attempt to acquire Guentzel.

Similarly, Florida doesn’t have a first round pick in 2024 or 2024 either; and have gone out of their way to talk about how close their team is and how they don’t want to upset team chemistry. That likely means they will be hesitant to trade any current players away, and lacking high-end draft picks makes them an unappealing trade partner with the Pens. Their desire to add Guentzel might trump that if they ante up, but it doesn’t look like they have a lot of prime trading chips in their stack at the moment.

With all of this information, Kyle Dubas also has to balance that against the Pens with a recent 2-0-1 upswing in play over the last week to buoy their own season, Dubas may also have to consider weighing whether or not he should simply outright keep Guentzel as his own rental as well. Dubas has never been in a hurry to re-sign Guentzel - and he’s said he wants to get younger, so perhaps a move towards trading him has always been in the cards.

But with trade returns that likely will be a very late pick in the first round, a mid-level prospect and another mid-round pick, Dubas might not find a huge bounty for Guentzel. Then again, there’s still time for a suitor to step up and really wow him. We’ll find out by March 8th when the NHL has their deadline.