The Pittsburgh Penguins are off to a miserable start to the 2024 season. They have 15 points out of 18 games heading into Thursday's action and have already made a trade. Lars Eller was dealt from Pittsburgh to the Washington Capitals and Elliotte Friedman reports that more are coming. The Sportsnet insider says the Penguins could trade Drew O'Connor and Marcus Pettersson before the deadline.
“Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor are among those to follow,” Friedman wrote. Pettersson deservedly gets a lot of attention, but O’Connor’s low number ($925,000) and flexibility makes him attractive, too.”
Friedman also spoke about how Pittsburgh sold at last year's deadline, trading forward Jake Guentzel. He was a pending free agent who brought in a big return. For a bigger return this time around, he'll have to look beyond the 2025 free agents.
“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.”
It will be difficult for the Penguins to start ripping down their foundation because of their Hall-of-Fame core. Sidney Crosby just signed a two-year extension this summer and wants to finish his career in Pittsburgh. How can they make the end of his career as competitive as possible?
Penguins must improve for future
While there is still a long way to go in the 2024-25 season, the playoffs are a far cry for the Penguins. Money Puck gives them a 10.5% chance to make the postseason, the second-lowest in the Metropolitan Division. The future of the team is still tied up in Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson. While all four of those players are headed to the Hall of Fame, they chew up a lot of the salary cap.
The magic of the Penguins in their championship years was their depth scoring. The famous post from Acting the Fulemin commemorating Mark Donk and Buzz Flibbett is so funny because it was true. Now, they cannot create third and fourth-line scoring and are trading those pieces away.
For Kyle Dubas to build a contender quickly, he needs to scout the league expertly. This offseason, he picked up Anthony Beauvillier, who struggled with the Canucks, Blackhawks, and Predators in the past two years. He has been part of the problem this year, as he has only five goals in 18 games.
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