{"id":645989,"date":"2026-08-20T01:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/645989\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T01:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:03:13","slug":"penguins-trade-cruz-lucius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/645989\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins Trade Cruz Lucius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It might not have been the August trade anyone really hoped for, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/pittsburgh-penguins\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"147\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Penguins <\/a>might not have received any tangible benefit from it, but they completed an August trade Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Penguins traded the rights to collegiate prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/cruz-lucius\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"4074\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cruz Lucius<\/a> to the Anaheim for the hefty sum of future considerations Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trade officially ends the Lucius back-and-forth in which the player informed the team in April that he would not sign with them when his college career at Arizona State University ended. Lucius\u2019s NCAA eligibility expired, or so we thought. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One twist to the story is that Lucius was eligible for a fifth NCAA season, so the Penguins retained his rights beyond the Aug. 15 deadline, thus mandating a trade rather than a simple UFA contract. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last season, Lucius scored 15 goals with 46 points in 36 games. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anaheim now owns Lucius\u2019s rights, and when he files for unrestricted free agency, Anaheim will have 30 days to sign him, according to PuckPedia.com\u2019s interpretation of the CBA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Penguins general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/kyle-dubas\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"1425\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Dubas<\/a> was brusque when describing the situation on the team-hosted radio show in April. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re at the position here anymore where we have to beg people to come,\u201d Dubas said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Penguins acquired Lucius\u2019s rights in the Jake Guentzel trade near the 2024 NHL trade deadline. The Penguins received Michael Bunting, Vasily Ponomarev, Ville Koivunen, and a second-round pick in the deal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ponomarev, 24, returned home to Russia last summer when the Penguins would not guarantee him an NHL roster spot. The team traded Michael Bunting near the 2025 trade deadline to Nashville for Tommy Novak and Luke Schenn (then traded Schenn to Winnipeg for a second-round pick). And the Penguins signed Koivunen to an eight-year, $32 million deal earlier this month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Penguins used that second-round pick in the deal to select Harrison Brunicke. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags:<a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/cruz-lucius\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\">Cruz Lucius<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/tag\/penguins-trade\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\">Penguins Trade<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">Categorized:<a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/category\/penguins-trade-talk\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\">Penguins Trade Talk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It might not have been the August trade anyone really hoped for, and the Pittsburgh Penguins might not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,19808,1739,5,4,644],"class_list":["post-645989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheimducks","tag-cruz-lucius","tag-ducks","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-penguins-trade"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117125146393880086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}