LAS VEGAS -- Kyle Dubas on Wednesday shut down any rumors floating around regarding Jake Guentzel trade talks between the Penguins and other teams.
"We haven't had any conversations with any other teams about Jake, so anything that's out there is is pure speculation," Dubas said on play-by-play announcer Josh Getzoff's radio show. "That's really as simple as that."
What to do with Guentzel is one of the biggest questions the Penguins have as they approach the trade deadline. Guentzel, 29, is in the last year of his contract that carries a $6 million cap hit and is due for a raise. And as his agent Ben Hankinson acknowledged on SiriusXM's NHL Network Radio last week, Guentzel's future is still very much up in the air.
"Jake Guentzel is in a great spot," Hankinson said. "He started his career there. It's no secret the team is getting older. There are some Hall of Fame players on that team. What's going to happen, I don't know. But I'm going to lean on conversations I've already had with Kyle, including in the summer, including conversations with Jake. I think the good thing is we'll all be on the same page. Could it get ugly? Yes, it could. Kyle has to make decisions, too, which way the team is going and the investment he's going to make with Jake. Is it the same direction? It's going to come down to how they play and we'll put our heads together. And like we talked about a couple of minutes ago, all the things that go into trade deadlines, (Kyle) might look into what he can get for Jake or what it costs to sign him. There's a lot that will happen in two months, and I don't know the answers to that. But I do know Jake loves Pittsburgh. He's a hockey player. He's had some good success and fun in that city. We'll see.”
Dubas expressed a similar sentiment on Wednesday, saying that he'll continue to evaluate where the team is as the season goes on, and either after the All-Star break or after the season will determine along with Guentzel's side "what's best for everybody -- what's best for the Penguins, best for Jake."
If both sides can agree to an extension, that would be great. But if they can't before the March 8 trade deadline, Dubas could look to trade Guentzel for assets instead of letting him walk in free agency.
Re-signing Guentzel is possible and should be the priority moving forward. And even if an extension doesn't get signed before March 8, the Penguins shouldn't move him out ahead of the trade deadline.
It's tough to gauge exactly what Guentzel might command in a new contract as a re-signing. William Nylander has been floated around as a good comparison after he signed an eight-year extension that carries an $11.5 million cap hit recently, but I'm not sure if that's a great comparison to Guentzel. For one, Nylander is two years younger. Second, if you look at the contracts other Maple Leafs forwards have gotten recently -- Auston Matthews with his impending $13.25 million cap hit, John Tavares and his $11 million cap hit, Mitch Marner and his $10.903 million cap hit, there isn't exactly a culture in Toronto of players taking less than they could have on the open market to stay. In Pittsburgh, there has been. While Crosby's $8.7 million cap hit wasn't exactly an underpayment back when he signed this contract back in 2012, it was an underpayment in that it would surely dip well below the course of his market value over the 12 years of the deal. Players who have signed after Crosby have taken less. Bryan Rust's current deal is an example. Projections back in 2022 had Rust perhaps getting north of $7 million per yea on the open market -- especially when teams like his hometown Red Wings had ample cap space -- but he signed a six-year deal with a $5.125 million cap hit, acknowledging afterward that he could have potentially gotten more elsewhere, but "there's things you may sacrifice" to stay in Pittsburgh.
Something in the range of $8.5-$10 million might be more reasonable for Guentzel. And looking at other long, big-money deals signed by forwards recently, maybe Mark Scheifele's seven-year extension in Winnipeg might be a closer comparison than Nylander's. Scheifele's deal carries a $8.5 million cap hit. He's only a year older than Guentzel at 30, and their offensive production has been similar in recent years. This year, they're pretty close. Guentzel has 19 goals and 27 assists in 42 games, while Scheifele has 14 goals and 27 assists in 41 games.
Something that could be done to keep Guentzel's cap hit down is give him a longer-term deal to give him that guaranteed money. Then later in the deal, you give him little to no trade protection so he can be moved out once the window is shut. Scheifele's deal has a full no-movement clause in the first three years, the a 10-team no-trade list in the last four. Rust did something similar to stay in Pittsburgh -- a full no-movement clause in the first three years of the deal, then nothing at all in the last three.
The 2024-25 salary cap is expected to jump to $87.7 million, up $4.2 million from this season. The Penguins also have Jeff Carter's $3.125 million contract coming off the books, and he could be replaced on the Penguins' fourth line for far cheaper than that, perhaps for $1 million or less. There also remains the possibility that the Penguins could ship out players who aren't quite living up to their contracts, like Ryan Graves and his $4.5 million cap hit with a 12-team no-trade list, or Reilly Smith and his $5 million cap hit with an eight-team no-trade list. Few people thought that Dubas would be able to find takers for contracts like those of Jeff Petry and Mikael Granlund last summer, but he found a way.
The money for a Guentzel extension can be there if the Penguins want it to be, and they should want it to be for a number of reasons.
Finding wingers to play with Sidney Crosby hasn't been as easy as one would think over the years, and Guentzel obviously works in that spot. He's Crosby's preferred winger, and there isn't even a clear in-house No. 2 for that spot on the left side. Any replacement would have to come from the outside, and that would be a gamble. Crosby only has a year left on his contract after this season, and having Guentzel around would certainly make it more appealing for Crosby to keep playing.
This season matters, too. Trading Guentzel would be like punting on this season (and maybe the ones that follow). The Penguins sit just two points back of a playoff spot as of Thursday. It's hard to imagine a scenario where they're out of it as the trade deadline gets close. They're on the upswing, relative to the way they started the season. They're 10-3-3 in their last 16 games. If they were clear out of the race by March? Sure. But the way they're trending, they won't be.
If they're still looking to be contend for anything this season, Guentzel gives them the best chance to do that. They're not going to recoup anything in a deal for the NHL roster that carries a similar cap hit to Guentzel's current one of $6 million that makes them a better team. No chance.
If that means Guentzel eventually walks in free agency, so be it. Contending teams look for "rental" impact players all the time on expiring deals to load up for playoff pushes, knowing that they might not be able to re-sign the player. If Guentzel ends up being the Penguins' own "rental" that they didn't have to overpay for in a trade, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. When you have Crosby having a potential career season like he's having, you surround him with "rental" players like that, you don't take them away.
If the Penguins do take that gamble, don't win it all this season, and Guentzel still walks, he wouldn't have been lost for "nothing." The gain would an additional $6 million in cap space to go along with the aforementioned cap increase and Carter's contract going away. That would be a lot to play with this summer in free agency.
And if they did move Guentzel out in a trade, what would the return be anyway? A first-round pick and a prospect, maybe an OK NHL-rostered player? Definitely not anything that would do them any good this year or even in the next couple. And any picks and prospects would be a gamble in and of themselves, because those aren't guaranteed to pan out. Best case scenario, you get a player who eventually turns out to be as good as Guentzel ... years from now, when the core is done and gone.
If the Penguins are going to take any gamble, it should be keeping Guentzel beyond the trade deadline and hoping to re-sign him if he hasn't been re-signed already. It's what's best for the immediate future and might be the Penguins' best bet beyond this season.
