The Pittsburgh Penguins made an inevitable move to clear up cap space by trading Erik Gudbranson to the Anaheim Ducks.
I’m not a NASCAR crew chief, but there is one lap down, and one lap to go for the Pittsburgh Penguins. After trading Erik Gudbranson and his absurd $4 million cap hit to the Anaheim Ducks on Friday afternoon, the Penguins no longer have $7.25 million tied in two replacement level defensemen. Pittsburgh now has $3.25 million tied up in one below-average defender (Jack Johnson).
In return, the Penguins acquired forward Andreas Martinsen and a 2021 seventh-round draft pick. The 29-year-old Martinsen has played 152 career NHL games. With the quality of Pittsburgh’s forward depth, I do not expect him to play at the NHL level this season. I am fine with that.
From Pittsburgh’s perspective, this sole purpose of this trade was to dump salary. The terrific Micah Blake McCurdy of Hockey Viz has the player comparison.
Andreas Martinsen (traded to Pittsburgh with a late pick) is a below-average forward. Erik Gudbranson, to Anaheim in return, is exceptionally, prodigiously bad. pic.twitter.com/ki6aYhoDNQ
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) October 25, 2019
More from Puck Prose
- Detroit Red Wings 2023 Rookie Camp Has Plenty of Ups and Downs
- This Columbus Blue Jackets rookie doesn’t want to be forgotten
- 2 trades the Boston Bruins must make to secure the Stanley Cup
- 3 reasons the Avalanche won’t win the Stanley Cup in 2024
- This is a big year for Alex Turcotte and the Los Angeles Kings
Props to general manager Jim Rutherford for not having to retain salary or having to add in an expensive “sweetener”. However, the bottom line is that the Penguins never should have acquired Gudbranson, to begin with. I wrote it at the time. There was more than a 500 plus game sample size that indicated that Gudbranson was a below-average defender.
While this was the proper decision and does create roster and salary cap flexibility, this trade happened a few months too late. Had the Penguins of done this in the summer (and they should of), they would have the add the opportunity to sign a skilled free agent such as winger Nikita Gusev or offensive defensemen Jake Gardiner.
I still feel that the Penguins need a top-six winger and adequate third pair defender in order to become legitimate contenders. On the bright side, they now have the salary-cap space to add at least one of those, but it will cost them assets via trade. Better late than never, I suppose.
In order for the Penguins forward depth to be maximized, they will need three functioning and at the very least, average defense pairs. In the short time they played together, Johnson and Gudbranson were abysmal. That was not difficult to predict. This clip provides visual evidence of that.
As Josh Yohe of The Athletic mentioned, the Penguins have made a whopping 42 trades (!!) over the last five years. Adam Gretz of NBC Sports raises a very valid question regarding the frequency of the roster turnover with the Penguins on Twitter. The roster turnover has been particularly extreme since Jason Botterill‘s departure in the summer of 2017.
Trading Gudbranson's contract without retaining any of it is a good move. But it's one of those good trades that only had to happen because the original trade was probably a bad trade. There have been a lot of those. Does that mean you're doing a good job?
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) October 25, 2019
Ultimately, Pittsburgh needs to make more effective, and analytically-inclined roster decisions. They need to get back to making progressive choices and never acquiring below-average players in the first place.
Trading Gudbranson is a significant step in the right direction. They are not out of the woods just yet, but they have until February to ship the other putrid defensemen out of town. If they can make a few more tweaks, they just might have their best roster since the 2017 championship run. Thanks for reading!