The Pittsburgh Penguins are getting closer to being healthy. They are also getting closer to having a million defensemen ready for game action.
When Brian Dumoulin and Juuso Riikola are cleared for action the team will have them in addition to: Kris Letang, John Marino, Marcus Pettersson, Mike Matheson, Cody Ceci, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Chad Ruhwedel, and Mark Friedman. This is the hockey equivalent of a doomsday prepper list for defensemen. There are ten names on this list. Something has to give. The team has holes. The team lacks draft picks. It would be foolhardy to keep this many players at the defense position.
So what makes sense? For me Kris Letang and John Marino aren’t players I would look to move. Finding capable right handed defensemen isn’t easy and I’d rather not trade either player after early season struggles.
Marcus Pettersson is a name I’ve thrown around quite a bit the last few months as a very tradeable asset, but what are you really looking to get back for him. I don’t think the forward caliber version of Pettersson would be a difference maker because I don’t think his perceived value around the league is significant enough. He’s also more useful on the active roster than getting mid round draft picks.
Mike Matheson, well yeah, duh. He is going to make some impressive plays offensively and offset them with ridiculous gaffes defensively. I would love to move the contract because he isn’t worth 4.8M. The term on the contract makes moving him close to impossible. Thus, he stays.
The next name is probably the player I would actively shop and it isn’t going to make a lot of people happy. I would definitely look to move on from Brian Dumoulin. He has been a really solid complement to Kris Letang for years. His contract is good. He has term left on the deal. What’s the problem?
That’s the point, there isn’t a problem. He is a mid-tier player with a good mid-tier contract with term left on it. He’s an asset and one that likely has a high perceived value around the league. He's won two Stanley Cups while being Kris Letang’s longtime defense partner on a top pairing for years. That's the kind of stuff that will be attractive to many NHL GM's eyes.
The Penguins would still have four left handed defensemen on the team even after a potential Dumoulin trade (Pettersson, Joseph, Matheson, Riikola). Dumoulin is a victim of circumstance here.
Dumoulin will be 30 years old at the start of next season and has two years left on his deal. If you want to add a forward to this lineup who can actually make a difference I think the most painless path in doing so would be using Brian Dumoulin in a trade. You could potentially Sam Poulin and/or Nate Legare to up the package as well. Dumoulin has a ten team no trade list so much of the league is available for business.
Dumoulin has been injured quite a bit the past two seasons and the fact he is approaching 30 coming off these injuries heightens the possibility of the aging curve biting back at him. While I think Dumoulin is a perfectly good player I also think his value has been pumped up by playing next to Letang for years. The Penguins should use this to their advantage. We saw what happened to Dumoulin in 2017 when Letang was out and it wasn’t pretty. Yes, it is a herculean task to play with Ron Hainsey on a top pairing, but it didn’t go particularly well. It took a .945 on-ice save percentage to keep them afloat and it took the team injecting PDO into their veins to make the run they did in the playoffs that year. I'm betting the number of NHL GM's who viewed Dumoulin's performance during that playoff run as impressive is greater than zero.
I think if you get ahead of the curve on this Dumoulin can be an asset with really good value on the market. The Penguins aren’t loaded with a plethora of good trade options at the moment. You have to give to get and I think the perceived value of Dumoulin is higher than the actual value. I don’t think the Penguins will see a dramatic step down considering they have a 24 year old Marcus Pettersson showing similar value to Dumoulin
The emergence of Pierre-Olivier Joseph has also opened the door to trading Dumoulin. Teams should always take advantage of having an ELC player able to eat minutes. Joseph can do that. Moving Dumoulin allows the Penguins to improve the roster elsewhere by trading from a position of strength. When you remove the emotional attachment many have to Dumoulin because of his strong tenure as a Penguin the logic points to him being the Penguins best bet to make an impact trade. It will be a tough pill to swallow for many fans. I think it is the right path forward.
Thanks for reading!
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