3/8/23 | 7 AM: The trade was:
- To Carolina: Jake Guentzel, Ty Smith
- To Pittsburgh: Michael Bunting, Three Prospects (Ville Koivunen Vasili Ponomarev Cruz Lucius) a conditional 2024 First Round pick that becomes Philadelphia’s 2024 Second Round Pick if Carolina DOESN”T make the Stanley Cup Final, a Conditional 5th Round Pick in 2024 that Pittsburgh only gets if Carolina wins the Stanley Cup this year, Retains 25% of Guentzel’s salary.
Pierre LeBrun said on TSN that the Hurricanes don’t think that they gave up any of their top 4-5 prospects in this deal.
3/7/23: The Hurricanes are reportedly going to acquire Jake Guentzel from the Hurricanes later tonight.
Other than Carolina sending Michael Bunting to Pittsburgh, the return for the Penguins is not yet known. (LeBrun)
Emily Kaplan said on ESPN that “the New York Rangers made a late push. Chris Drury is putting a lot of chips on the table, I’ve heard the package is pretty impressive, does not include Gabe Perreault, unsure on Kaapo Kakko.”
Kaplan said that she thinks that Frank Vatrano will be the fallback plan for the Rangers.
3/8/23: 7 AM: My view, below, on the Rangers and Guentzel has changed a bit now that we have seen what Carolina gave up. A lot of the buzz on Guentzel was that Pittsburgh was looking for two top prospects, two first-round equivalents and/or players with a quicker path to the NHL in exchange for Guentzel and that is where all the talk of Othmann, Perreault and Kakko came from. Carolina didn’t trade any of those things. They did trade Michael Bunting who is someone that Pens GM Kyle Dubas signed in Toronto, so there is familiarity there, but if this was the kind of package or price that the Rangers were negotiating on then I do believe they might have been as “in it” as reports have indicated. There is still a lot we don’t know, especially if the price was the same for the Rangers or if they were asking for more quality instead of quantity for one of the Penguins top rivals. I’d guess that the Rangers would have had to guarantee their first-round pick, rather than it being conditional, but beyond that we don’t know exactly what Pittsburgh was targeted. They get a player in Bunting that is signed for two-more years and steps right into their lineup. The only real comparable player for the Rangers would have been Kakko, and while Bunting is probably a better and more offensively productive player than Kakko is right now, Kakko is five years younger and still does carry that potential. I don’t think the Rangers wanted to move Kakko and moving him would have opened up a spot in the top-nine. Maybe they asked for Will Cuylle, but that was probably also another non-starter. So without Kakko and Cuylle, Brennan Othmann likely would have been a target for Pittsburgh, but if the Rangers also didn’t want to move him, then the Rangers likely wouldn’t have offered someone who could play in the NHL right now or in the top-nine next season. Maybe the Rangers tried to offer their first this year, first next year and some combination of Adam Sykora, Brett Berard or some other recent picks. My point is that when it seemed like the Rangers were going to need to pay 2-3 premium assets for Guentzel I didn’t buy it. When it might have cost one premium asset and 3-4 smaller assets I can see why the Rangers were considered to be in heavy for him.
3/7/23: Adam Rotter: My guess on all of this Guentzel stuff is that once the Rangers acquired Alex Wennberg and knew what assets they still had they checked in again on Guentzel with the hope that the longer this dragged out that maybe they could swoop in and get Guentzel if the price dropped. I don’t doubt that they were/are interested and believe that they would offer their first-round pick in the hope that they could use that as the focal point of the trade and use a mid-level prospect, but I just can’t shake the feeling that they were getting mentioned as a way to drive up the price for Carolina, Vegas or Vancouver. Maybe I’m wrong and they were willing to offer a first and Kakko or a first and Brennan Othmann and Carolina just outbid them. But I just think that so much of their reported interest was being used to drive up the price.
Maybe part of my issue is not wanting to believe that they would offer pieces to Pittsburgh that could/would potentially torment them for years while Guentzel would probably leave as UFA. If they won the cup with Guentzel it would probably have been worth it, or if they were able to re-sign him, but it would have been a big risk.
There was also the fit aspect with Guentzel. He’s a LW, of which the Rangers have many, and while the PP has been struggling lately, we saw it nearly break when the Rangers tried to add Patrick Kane to it last year. So it would have been an awful lot to give up for a rental, to play on his off-side, and likely only get a shot on PP2. Could it have worked? Sure. Guentzel has been a good player for a long time, but he’s not as seamless a fit as Frank Vatrano or Pavel Buchnevich would be. This is also going to be his first time not just not with the Penguins, where he has spent his entire career, but first time playing without Sidney Crosby.