Pittsburgh Penguins: Alexis Lafreniere would be a franchise altering addition

Alexis Lafrenière would be the ultimate consolation prize for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

If you would have told me back in October that a Pittsburgh Penguins roster consisting of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, and Kris Letang would be in contention for consensus top prospect Alexis Lafrenière, I would have called you absolutely crazy. Well, it’s 2020. Here we are.

As you may recall, Pittsburgh traded their first-round pick to Minnesota in the Jason Zucker deal. The Penguins put conditions on that pick to ensure that it was lottery protected. Depending on the outcome of tonight’s lottery, general manager Jim Rutherford has the option to send Pittsburgh’s 2020 or 2021 first-rounder to his former co-worker Bill Guerin and the Wild.

Regardless of whether or not the Penguins win tonight’s draft lottery, they should keep their 2020 first-round pick. The Penguins’ lowest possible draft slot will be 15th overall. That would be their highest pick since selecting Derrick Pouliot at 8th overall in 2012. I highly doubt Pittsburgh’s first-rounder will fall between 1 and 15 in 2021.

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Pittsburgh, Toronto, Edmonton, Nashville, Florida, Minnesota, Winnipeg, and the New York Rangers all have a 12.5 % chance of winning tonight’s lottery. Obviously, there is an 87.5% chance Pittsburgh does not win the lottery. If you are as superstitious as Sidney Crosby and/or you believe in omens, perhaps those odds are a sign of good luck. Lafreniere and Crosby also played for the same team in the QMJHL.

Pittsburgh, Toronto, or Edmonton winning this would incredibly chaotic. There’s a 37.5 % chance that one of these three win it. It would absolutely infuriate hockey Twitter. It is quite comical that these three teams even have the opportunity to win this lottery. Lafreniere would thrive alongside Crosby, Malkin, and Guentzel.

He would align with the Maple Leafs electric young core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander. Connor McDavid and Leon Draistil in Edmonton are not too shabby, either.

In Pittsburgh, we witnessed first hand how valuable young and productive forwards on entry-level contracts are. A young core of Lafreniere, Guentzel, Sam Poulin, John Marino could lessen the extent of a possible Penguins rebuild and perhaps extend their championship window. I’m stating the obvious in stating that Lafreniere would be a franchise-altering addition.

TSN, ISS Hockey, Elite Prospects, and Bob McKenzie have all deemed Lafreniere the best player in this class. Craig Button of TSN feels that Lafreniere is “more than capable of being a 60 plus-point player as a rookie.”

I am certainly not a prospect guru. Those who are, consider Lafreniere’s ceiling to be a franchise defining winger. His hockey sense is clearly elite. As a dynamic playmaking winger, he does not appear to be over-reliant on any one aspect of his game. He is very well rounded and can attack defenders in a variety of ways.

In 173 career games with Rimouski of the QMJHL, Lafreniere tallied 114 goals, 183 assists, and 297 points. While the “Q” is known for being a high-scoring league, that is staggering offensive production.

This clip from the 2019 World Juniors captures Lafreniere’s (#11 in red) skillset. First, he demonstrates awareness to realize there are two American defenders preventing him from a controlled offensive zone entry.

He then showed patience as he allows his teammate to catch up and enter with speed and possession. After getting the return pass, Lafreniere attacks the net and stickhandles to avoid two poke-check attempts. Finally, his vision was on display, as he found his teammate on the backdoor to register a primary assist.

Lafreniere’s (#11 in white) puck poise and confidence are on full display here. With his time and space quickly evaporating due to 4 defenders closing in on him, he plays fends off a slash, maintains control of the puck, and makes a drop pass to his teammate.

Lafreniere (#11 in black) has been dominating opponents for quite some time. During the 2018 World Juniors, he was a year and a half away from being drafted. He was still dominating opponents. Here he is going coast-to-coast in the Gold Medal game.

Sam Happi released his terrific 2020 NHL Draft rankings. Based on these projections, Happi expects Lafreniere to produce about 52 points if the NHL has a full 82 game schedule in 2020-21. Happi goes onto describe Lafreniere as an “incredibly intelligent player who can anticipate the play developing and remains at least a step ahead at all times.”

Happi’s entire article can be found here.

Basing off the last couple of World Juniors, Lafreniere appeared to be more dominant than Jack Hughes or Kappo Kakko from last year’s draft. Granted those were a long, long time ago and are very small sample sizes. For what it’s worth, I have also seen a few people more credible than me state the same, so take their word for it.

I have seen a few Penguins reporters ponder the lottery winner trading out of the first overall selection. That is downright foolish and not worth consideration. Barring an insane offer, whoever gets the pick is keeping it.

Whichever team you’re pulling for in tonight’s lottery, make sure to knock on wood and pray to the hockey gods. The Penguins have had some incredible luck in their previous 7 draft lotteries. We shall see if their luck continues in their eighth tonight. Thanks for reading!