As the Pittsburgh Penguins push forward on a rebuild despite maintaining a a core that long since passed usual retirement age, general manager Kyle Dubas has kept his focus on adding the very something every youth movement actually needs.
Youth.
The Penguins have worked their way down from having the league’s oldest roster just a few years ago to 10th oldest this season, but still have an average age over 29 years old, and without some changes this summer, they will be again be near the top of the age chart next season.
One of the saliva inducing trade pools involves the unusually high number of young defensemen who will be restricted free agents. Teams typically move expeditiously to lock up young D-men, as they are a precious commodity.
Interestingly, a few teams have been too good at stocking defensemen, creating a glut, while a few others have young defenders who are struggling to meet expectations. And now those players are due for new contracts while the teams control their rights.
For Dubas and the Penguins, that reads like one word: Opportunity.
However, over the last five years, there have been only a handful of NHL trades involving RFA defensemen or those who recently signed their second contract. With the scarcity of examples, there simply isn’t much of a market to gauge for values and costs, especially since the value of a still developing blueliner is often in the eye of the beholder.
For example, after a relatively tame first season on a new six-year deal with a $4.4 million average annual value, the Penguins traded then 25-year-old John Marino to the New Jersey Devils for merely a faded prospect defenseman (Ty Smith), and a third-round pick.
Predictably, Smith never achieved regular NHL work, while two years later New Jersey traded Marino and a fifth-rounder to Utah for a pair of second-round picks. New Jersey certainly got more than a dirty soda from Utah and dwarfed the trade made by former Penguins GM Ron Hextall, but it all proves the wildly variable values not just on the outside but the inside of the game as well.
Fortunately, there seems to be one common theme among the trades for young defensemen. Unfortunately for the Penguins, that theme is to include a first-round pick in the deal.
And since the Penguins have the 22nd overall pick, maybe this is the year Dubas would consider such a move? But a note of caution: the trade costs are only part of the risk. Acquiring young defensemen can also mean paying a high cost for an asset that doesn’t work out.
Just ask the New York Islanders.
Currently, there are five RFA defenseman whose names are being bandied about as trade fodder: Righty Brayden Schneider (New York Rangers), righty Simon Nemec (New Jersey Devils), lefties Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintukov (Anaheim Ducks), and right-handed Michael Kesselring (Buffalo Sabres).
This week, PHN will examine them and their value, but first it bears examining the market forces that affect those d-men.
RFA Defenseman Trades
Trade: Previously, Dubas was on the other end of a young defenseman trade when, as the GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he dealt Rasmus Sandin to the Washington Capitals on Feb. 28, 2023. In exchange for the young D-man in the first year of a two-year bridge deal, and Toronto received defenseman Erik Gustafsson and Boston’s 2023 first-round pick (28th overall).
Sandin has been a stable part of the Washington blueline, though not spectacular or a big points producer. And Toronto fired Dubas a few months later, but their draft team, led by current Penguins vice president of player personnel Wes Clarke, snagged Easton Cowan with the pick.
Trade cost: A second-pairing defenseman for the 28th overall pick and a serviceable third-pair veteran.
Trade: File the Bo Byram deal under hockey trade. The Buffalo Sabres have made a few sketchy trades over the last decade, but acquiring Byram, a young defenseman in need of greater opportunity, from the Colorado Avalanche for center Casey Mittelstadt was not one. Byram wasn’t succeeding in Colorado, and Mittelstadt was just fine but expendable in Buffalo.
Trade cost: Equal hockey swap. In fact, Buffalo won the deal as Mittelstadt did not solve Colorado’s need for a 2C, and they later spent much to acquire Brock Nelson, while Buffalo has been able to deploy Byram as a top-four defenseman.
Trade: Here’s one to circle. On the eve of the 2022-23 NHL season, the New York Rangers traded rookie d-man Nils Lundkvist to the Dallas Stars for a conditional 2023 1st-round pick and a conditional 2025 4th-round pick in September of 2022. Of course, at the trade deadline, the Rangers squandered the first-round pick (which became the 29th overall) by dealing it away as part of a package for Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkala.
The Rangers did quite well to get a first-rounder for the right-handed Lundqvist, who was far from a proven commodity. Lundkvist had just four points (1-3-4) in 25 games during his rookie year and didn’t play enough games to shed his rookie stripes.
His offensive skills were highly touted, but his strength and all-round game needed work. He spent his first three seasons following his 2018 draft selection in the Swedish High League, and then played just 25 games in his rookie year for the Rangers, with another 34 in Hartford of the AHL.
Trade cost: Dallas gave away a draft pick that projected anywhere from 20 to 32. Lundkvist has not become an offensive force on the Dallas blueline and had just 11 points (3-8-11) in 50 games. In fact, he hasn’t played more than 60 games in any one season in his NHL career.
Trade: In July 2022 begins our great cautionary tale of a GM overpaying for a young defenseman. The story begins and ends on Long Island, where New York Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello plunked down the 13th overall pick of the 2022 NHL Draft for then 22-year-old Montreal Canadiens defenseman Alex Romanov.
Whoops. Romanov was highly touted en route from the KHL to the NHL, but he had a lot of work ahead to adjust to the smaller North American rinks and the much faster NHL game. Four years later, he’s still far from a finished product, has only produced 65 points in four seasons with New York and played only 15 games this season before shoulder surgery ended his campaign.
Trade cost: Frank Nazar. Montreal flipped the pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for Kirby Dach, and Chicago nabbed Nazar with the selection. Since his NHL debut beginning the 2024-25 season, Nazar has steadily grown over the last two seasons and registered 41 points (16-25-41) in 66 games this season.
Penguins Position
Dubas surely sees the value of acquiring a young defender, even as the Penguins have a couple of youngsters ready to claim blueline spots. Harrison Brunicke will be 20 next season and looks like a surefire NHL player, but his opportunity to claim a spot this season temporarily bordered on disastrous. The Penguins also have 2022 first-round pick Owen Pickering (21st overall), who is dutifully awaiting a full-time shot.
Perhaps a silver lining of the 22nd overall pick is that it is more expandable than a mid-rounder or even an top-10 pick.
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