When you are a rebuilding team that has stockpiled more draft picks than you would ever have a reasonable need for, you have the flexibility to take some chances on talented players that have not worked out in their previous stop. If you are a contending team short on assets, you are not trading two draft picks for Yegor Chinakhov as the Pittsburgh Penguins did on Monday.

You are going to use those draft picks for somebody that is a more well-known commodity, or somebody that you know is going to contribute without much risk.

You are not really in a position to take a flier on somebody and hope to catch lightning in a bottle.

The Penguins kind of are, and they have not been shy about taking those swings over the past couple of years.

Especially since Kyle Dubas arrived.

I am also not overly concerned about the draft picks the Penguins gave up. Even though that 2026 St. Louis Blues pick has a chance to be a relatively high second-round pick, the Penguins still have their own second-round pick and the Winnipeg Jets second-round pick (which is also looking mighty nice right now, and perhaps the most valuable of the three picks) and will almost certainly be able to get a comparable pick back when they inevitably flip Anthony Mantha and his 20-25 goals at the deadline. If Anthony Beauvillier landed you a second-round pick a year ago, I don’t see why Mantha won’t do the same this year.

Maybe it will not be as valuable as the Blues pick, but the difference between pick No. 38 and, say, pick No. 50 in most draft classes is pretty insignificant from a big picture perspective.

It’s probably worth taking a chance on a talented player with a good shot to see if a fresh start and a change of scenery can help them put it all together. Especially when you are still loaded with draft picks and have the means of acquiring more at any point between now and March.

The question is will this chance and roll of the dice pay off.

The Penguins have made a lot of these moves in recent years with mixed results.

Chinakhov joins a list of recent reclamation projects that already includes Philip Tomasino, Jesse Puljujarvi, Emil Bemstrom, Connor Dewar, Arturs Silovs and Vladislav Kolyachonok. I will also include Tommy Novak in that group, even though he was a better and more established player when he was acquired in the Michael Bunting trade.

Some of them have turned out better than others in terms of success.

Novak is talented, but at times frustrating. Also at times productive.

Dewar is a good fourth-liner.

Silovs is …. I am not sure what he is at this point.

Tomasino, Puljujarvi, Bemstrom and Kolyachonok never amounted to anything in Pittsburgh.

That brings us to Chinakhov.

While most of the players mentioned here were acquired for relatively little (Novak excluded), the Penguins paid a pretty steep price for Chinakhov. But he is also arguably the most talented of the bunch with the highest potential upside, and he also might be the best pure finisher out of that group.

The table below looks at all of the aforementioned forwards and their production in terms of 5-on-5 play per 60 minutes in the three full seasons before the Penguins acquired them.

Chinakhov has clearly demonstrated that he has the best finishing ability and goal-scoring ability out of everybody in that group. It is actually pretty good relative to the rest of the league.

PlayerGoals/60Points/60Shots/60iXG/60Yegor Chinakhov1.001.957.530.62Tommy Novak0.762.125.870.63Connor Dewar0.481.146.330.58Philip Tomasino0.601.707.010.76Emil Bemstrom0.551.497.370.71Jesse Puljujarvi0.591.408.210.90

The book on Chinakhov at this point is that he has great offensive talents, including his shot, and that kind of tracks here. He does not generate a ton of chances, but he has at least shown some ability to finish. That is way more than can be said about some of the previous projects the Penguins have taken on.

His 1.00 goals per 60 minutes between 2022-23 and 2024-25 ranked 57th out of 575 forwards that played at least 250 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey. It is a small sample size, but he still did that over 1,375 minutes and at least showed SOMETHING. An injury slowed things down for him, he obviously did not see eye-to-eye or match well with head coach Dean Evason and he and the organization obviously needed a split. Especially after he asked for a trade.

My immediate reaction to seeing this transaction was, “well, he is this year’s Philip Tomasino.” But that’s probably doing a disservice to Chinakhov and boosting up Tomasino a little too much.

Overall your expectations should still be low. The chances of the Penguins — or any team — catching lightning in a bottle with a trade like this are low. If you get a 20-goal season out of him at some point consider it a major win. But I still think it is a worthy gamble for a team in need of some finishers. Is the price high? Maybe. But again, you have potentially more valuable picks in the same round and the means to acquire more if needed. He has also shown more goal-scoring ability than some of these previous projects have. Roll the dice and see what happens.