Report Reveals Penguins Couldn't Trade Assets Due to Poor Play

The expectations of the Penguins organization was to do much better than they did before the trade deadline. There were many options for the Penguins to move to try and rebuild the team.

With a Number of Tradable Players the Penguins Made Minimal Moves

The Penguins had a good number of available players outside of Jake Guentzel that they could move before the deadline. After the obvious Guentzel deal to Carolina, the only other two moves included Chad Ruhwedel and Magnus Hellberg.

Elliotte Friedman Suggests Loss of Value Because of Bad Team Play

According to Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts Podcast, there really was a lot of interest in other players on the team. The problem was the only player who was going to attract good return was Jake Guentzel.


Reilly Smith and Lars Eller were both good options for the Penguins to trade, but neither were sparking any real return to make it worth the deal.

Eller is a good example of the aging Penguins team, as he is a fine bottom six winger, but is also 35 years old and for a Penguins team trying to get younger, a just fine player is not going to get returns they need.

Reilly Smith is also not producing to what he could, and his price tag is way too high to warrent any good prospects.

Friedman Suggests the Only Real Player with Value at the Deadline Was Guentzel

Friedman believes that the only real option was Guentzel and to try to get as much out of him as possible. They would have preferred to move other pieces and possibly keep Guentzel, but no deals materialized.


Turns out that the Penguins bad season also hurt their chances at getting decent returns of those players who did not perform well. Guentzel was the only option.

As Read On: The Hockey News - Penguins Losing Season Killed Trade Values