Looking back at some big deals
As we sit around waiting for potentially another big Pittsburgh Penguin summer trade to unfold, why not go back through the history books and remember some other big trades in franchise history.
The summer is a great time for NHL teams to reshape their teams. The Penguins have been as active as anyone else, with results all over the map. All of Craig Patrick, Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford — the three Stanley Cup winning managers of the team — have made major moves in the summer. Some were smash success. Others…well not so much. No one gets ‘em all right in the end.
June 14, 1978: Dave Burrows for Randy Carlyle — Carlyle won the franchise’s only Norris Trophy to date and stuck around for six seasons.
June 16, 1990: A second round pick for Joe Mullen — the internet says Calgary was looking to move a 33-year old Mullen due to think his best days were behind him, and boy did that work out for the Pens. Good ol’ Slippery Rock Joe was fourth on the team in 1991 playoff goals and his 42-goal, 87-point season in 1991-92 helped position the Pens for a second Stanley Cup. He would go onto be in Pittsburgh as a player or coach through 2005-06 (save a 37-game stint in Boston in 1995-96).
July 29, 1994: Rick Tocchet and a second round pick for Luc Robitaille — For as big of an impact as Tocchet made, he was a Penguin for barely two years. By 1994, the Pens’ emerging dynasty was snuffed out and Pittsburgh had to switch gears and try some new things. That meant getting a little more skilled and less powerful with this trade, which the trade tree for this one ended up working out well for a while to come —as we’ll soon see.
August 31, 1995: Penguins trade Luc Robitaille and Ulf Samuelsson to New York Rangers for Sergei Zubov and Petr Nedved — You have to love and miss the frequency of trades in the ‘90s. It only took one year after getting a future Hall of Famer in Robitaille before the Pens traded him right back out. (As we’ll see, they’d move Zubov in one year as well, Nedved would hold out and be traded two years later for Alexei Kovalev). This was a great trade, the lasting memory of 1995-96 for the Pens is of the ‘Score Lords’ and then those damn rats, but Nedved put up a 99-point season that year. Robitaille would go onto get his mojo back in the late ‘90s and early 2000’s but was in the midst of a strange mid-career slump at this point (he only scored 23 goals and managed 69 points with the Rangers).
June 22, 1996 – Sergei Zubov for Kevin Hatcher — When the Pens said they wanted “Hatcher” back in order to send Zubov to Dallas, at first the Stars thought they meant Derian, their captain and best defender. Shockingly, it was Kevin that was the Pens’ target. Zubov and Mario Lemieux were oil and water so that had to be resolved, but it didn’t end up in the best way for Pittsburgh.
July 11, 2001: Penguins trade Jaromir Jagr to the Washington Capitals for Kris Beech, Michal Sivek, Ross Lupaschuk and $5 million dollars — This one is like the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees (aside from the part where Jagr disappointed in Washington). The Pens had to make a move and did acquire three solid prospects, none of which ever truly amounted to much. The money helped the team stay alive, though, but was the start of some truly dark and uncertain days before the NHL had a salary cap or the Penguins had a functional modern arena.
June 22, 2012: Penguins trade Jordan Staal to the Carolina Hurricanes for a first-round draft pick, Brian Dumoulin, and Brandon Sutter — Staal remains beloved, but in hindsight it’s probably a good thing that he declined the Pens’ big contract offer. Fitting in under the cap and maintaining a deep team was a big problem that would have been worse if Staal had a huge cap hit too. Pittsburgh did well to get three pieces back, and of course the least heralded one at the time (Dumoulin) ended up being the longest-lasting and most impactful.
June 27, 2014: James Neal traded for Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling — Jim Rutherford’s first major move was a step back in skill but set the tone of how he wanted to shape his team with the relentless drive of Hornqvist. This trade had a pretty decent “backfire” chance had Neal kept producing and Hornqvist was so freakin’ special but it ended up going well for the Pens, highlighted of course by Hornqvist scoring a Stanley Cup winning goal with a broken hand late in Game 6 IN Nashville (Neal had one goal, no assists in that series).
July 1, 2015: Penguins acquire Phil Kessel from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a first-round pick, Kasperi Kapanen, Nick Spaling, Scott Harrington, and a third-round pick — the trade that launched a thousand memes. For all the fervor surrounding Kessel and teammates or coaches or Toronto media members he drove crazy, for a few hours a day he was a quiet guy who just loved to play hockey (and was very good at it).
July 16, 2022: Penguins traded John Marino to the New Jersey Devils for Ty Smith and a 2023 3rd-round pick — This move was seen as a multi-faceted revamp of the Penguin defense (that also saw Mike Matheson traded to Montreal for Jeff Petry) and did not work out for the Pens. Smith only played nine NHL games with Pittsburgh, his career hitting reverse after making it to the NHL as a 20-year old with New Jersey in 2021. Pittsburgh was skittish about Marino and his big contract might have been stagnating, but it turned out not so good.
August 6, 2023: Penguins acquire Erik Karlsson (three‑team trade with San Jose and Montreal) — A messy trade with complicated feelings, which might be the best way to sum up a lot of Karlsson’s stint in Pittsburgh. It was a last gasp effort to jolt the Penguins back into contention. It didn’t work out, but not without the best of intentions or efforts.
August 22, 2024: Penguins traded forward Brayden Yager to the Winnipeg Jets for forward Rutger McGroarty — This will be a tremendous trade to watch develop in the future. Yager was Kyle Dubas’s first draft pick with Pittsburgh but was dealt for a more NHL ready and potentially slightly better overall prospect in McGroarty. But that last part is no guarantee one year out.