Rickard Rakell and some other big names are still Pittsburgh Penguins.
Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas continued his re-tooling and rebuilding of the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday, turning Anthony Beauvillier, Cody Glass and Luke Schenn into two second-round draft picks, a third-round draft pick and a fourth-round draft pick.
Added in with the Lars Eller, Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor and Michael Bunting trades and they have added to a rapidly growing cupboard of draft picks over the next three years. Nobody in the NHL has more.
In terms of value, they did mostly well, especially given how players like Beauvillier and Glass were originally acquired.
But the equally big news on Friday was not necessarily about what happened for the Penguins in terms of trades, but what did not happen.
Rickard Rakell is still a Penguin.
Erik Karlsson is still a Penguin.
Matt Grzelyck is still a Penguin.
Noel Acciari is still a Penguin.
Let’s start with the latter two names, because those were probably two of the names that might have been expected to be on the way out.
Especially Grzelyck.
Every other major pending UFA the Penguins had this season ended up getting traded at some point, and Grzelyck figured to have some real value given the prices of rental players this week. He can still bring some value to a power play and provide some offense.
It is now likely he walks for nothing in the offseason.
That might be a small missed opportunity, but given how much value the Penguins extracted out of their other offseason short-term additions it is not the end of the world.
I don’t know how much value Acciari would have had, but with the rising cap his contract would not have been a terrible value and he is still a penalty killer.
Then we get to Rakell and Karlsson, the two biggest names potentially on the block going into Friday but also arguably the toughest to move. In Rakell’s case, it was going to be about getting appropriate value. In Karlsson’s care, it was going to be about finding a team that he wanted to go to, could take his salary, and not force the Penguins to retain much on their end.
While there was always a possibility something could happen there with those two names, neither seemed like a given to move as both seem like they are more offseason moves, or even future season moves.
Let’s start with Rakell.
The argument for moving him by Friday was very simple: It is a big-time seller’s market, he is probably having a career year, and those two things meeting at the same point would have made for an intriguing trade asset. I get that. It all makes a lot of sense.
But for as sweeping as this rebuild looks, it still might not be a total, everything-must-go teardown. The Penguins still seem to have some intent on competing again before Sidney Crosby retires, so if you did not get the right offer it makes sense to keep him.
There is also this: What if they just wanted to keep him.
You still need to put a team on the ice. You still need to have good players. Rakell is not only a good player, his contract looks a lot more desirable now than it did 12 months ago. Even if regresses from where he was this season, I am not sure he regresses all the way down to where he was during the 2023-24 season. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle of those two points. And even that is still a very good player at $5 million per season. It is a contract that can still be moved in the future if needed, and it still gives Crosby a top-line talent to play alongside in the short-term.
Karlsson, meanwhile, always seemed like a long-shot to be moved just because of the money involved. It was either going to take a contender with immense salary cap space (not many), the Penguins retaining a big portion of his salary (not something they should have done unless a major return was coming back their way), or getting another team somehow involved (possible, but complicated).
Even then you would still have to find a team that he would accept and could give you a compensation package that was acceptable. That was just too many moving parts for an in-season move, especially leading up to the deadline.
Karlsson has not worked out as expected here, and he does still have a lot of defensive issues in his game, but there is still value there and he still does contribute a lot offensively. He is not necessarily a negative player to have on the roster.
It is very apparent that Dubas is going to be busy again this summer. Not only in terms of continuing to reshape the roster, but perhaps flipping some of these draft picks he has accumulated for additional players. He certainly has a lot of options to work with.