Welcome to the trade deadline post!
Like with previous years I’m gonna try to keep this post updated with the more important deals of the day, although by this point it looks like the majority of the important deals have already been done over the past couple of weeks. That means what’s left over will largely be surprises, stockpiling of future assets for teams on the outside of the playoff discussion, and depth bolstering for those teams in the playoff discussion.
On that topic, last night it was reported that the Pittsburgh Penguins were in talks with the San Jose Sharks to re-acquire Nick Bonino. Now 34 years old, Bonino and the Penguins are six years removed from the golden years when he centered the much-heralded HBK line with Carl Hagelin and Phil Kessel. Bonino was never the offensive force, hence Hagelin and particularly Kessel, and that’s been the issue for the third line since that trio was broken up after 2017. Given the turmoil of the Penguins’ bottom six over the past week-and-a-half, bringing in a familiar face like Bonino might play well with his prior teammates as well as serving in a Matt Cullen-esque role, but the third line needs more offense. Drew O’Connor can’t do it all himself!
Anyway, stay tuned to this space and the comments and we’ll see if we can’t have a running log of transactions to make things more fun.
Update: 12PM Eastern
Still nothing official on the Bonino front but it sounds like it’ll be a 5th and a 7th rounder going out and some third-party taking on a chunk of his salary. The Penguins also sent down Drew O’Connor and Drake Caggiula to clear some cap room, but it’ll probably be temporary.
The only other big moves in the last twelve hours were: Jakob Vrana going from Detroit to St. Louis (he has a year left on his contract, and the Red Wings retained 50% of his salary); Max Domi goes from Chicago to Dallas in exchange for Anton Khudobin; and the New Jersey Devils snatched up Curtis Lazar from Vancouver for a 4th round pick next year.
Update: 1PM Eastern
Two hours to go and not much cooking. The Flyers and Kings swapped baddies (Brendan Lemieux to Philly, Zach McEwen to Los Angeles) and Los Angeles also swapped bags of pucks with Montreal. The calm before the storm?
Update: 5PM Eastern
The trade deadline has passed and the Penguins did ultimately trade for ol’ Nicky Bones…
So, big picture, the Penguins have swapped out Kasperi Kapanen, Brock McGinn, and Teddy Blueger for Bonino, Mikael Granlund, and Kulikov. You’ll observe that that is three forwards out, two forwards and a defenseman in. Instead of trying to add the sort of offensive productivity that the team has been lacking from its depth players, general manager Ron Hextall instead went for defensive productivity, which could work out…if the Penguins’ opponents in the playoffs wouldn’t focus on shutting down the offensive production of the top six forwards like they have for the past five postseasons.
Yes, the team is on a four-game winning streak, and March is typically a good month for Pittsburgh, and maybe these moves will actually help the Penguins. But they need to go on quite the run now to avoid the nightmare first-round matchup against the Boston Bruins, and even then they’ll have the Carolina Hurricanes or New Jersey Devils to contend with, and they’ve yet to win a game against any of them this season with one game left against both Boston and New Jersey.
Tomorrow they’ll start their push for the postseason with the first of their last twenty-one games in Sunrise, FL against the Florida Panthers.