Penguins General Manager Jim Rutherford has stated that he wants better wingers for Crosby and Malkin. The problem is talented high end wingers don’t just fall into your lap. They either cost a boatload in free agency or will cost a premium in assets to acquire.
Given that there really aren’t any free agents of note that can help the Penguins in this area they are going to have to accomplish their goals via trade.
They aren’t going to be trading any of the core four players (Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Fleury) and they also aren’t going to be trading Olli Maatta or Derrick Pouliot. This puts a limit on the kind of shopping that they can do.
So if they aren’t trading their high ticket items (which they shouldn’t) then who is left?
The players left over include Brandon Sutter, Nick Spaling, Rob Scuderi, and Chris Kunitz. Not exactly prime targets for other teams.
Because of this the Penguins are limited in their ability to make a trade. The trade targets will not be premium top six wingers. They will be players who may have shown in the past to be very good good but have warts on their current resume for whatever reason. This could be age, declining production, bad contract etc…
Today I will highlight two players that fit this description.
This is not an endorsement for the Penguins to make the trade but to highlight the kind of player(s) that are realistically attainable given the Penguins current situation.
The two players I will highlight today are Patrick Sharp and Alexander Semin. Both players have shown a high end ability to rack up points in the past, both players have played with high end talent, both players are going to be readily available this summer, and both players come with risk.
Any top six winger acquisition for Pittsburgh is going to come with risk given the quality of assets they have available to trade. So let’s take a look at both of these players’ background and break down the risk/reward for Patrick Sharp and Alexander Semin.
Something to remember about these specific HERO charts is that the sample size is 2012-13 to the present. This only includes Alex Semin’s time with the Hurricanes. He isn’t playing nearly as bad as people think.
Neither player knocks it out of the park in shot suppression but they both do a great job generating shot attempts. Both players have quality offensive numbers.
As mentioned above both players have shown tremendous ability to produce points in the past. Both players are starting to see a drop in their production. Sharp is still producing at a solid rate but Semin’s production has fallen off the table (more on that later).
Possession wise they are both strong players so when they aren’t producing points they are still providing worth to their team. Even at Semin’s low point he is still at the 50% barrier which is very impressive. Alexander Semin has the reputation of being a floater and/or apathetic but it never shows up in the data.
Shooting percentage can go a long way in shaping people’s perceptions about a player. If we remember last year’s playoffs both Sidney Crosby and Rick Nash were playing good to great hockey. The goals weren’t going in and people made proclamations that they were not playing well. Both Patrick Sharp (11.4%) and Alexander Semin (12.8%) have shown to have above average skill in this department over their career sample sizes. The league average was 8.95 in 2014-15 for context. Currently both players are suffering from their shooting percentage slipping and with it so has the perception of each player.
Last but not least we look at dCorsi to see how each player did in the roles they were given.
Surprsing to me is just how often Patrick Sharp finds himself “underperforming” in the roles he has been given in Chicago. Seven of the last nine years he has had a negative dCorsi. This doesn’t mean that Sharp hasn’t had positive tangible results during this time period, just that they should have been higher given who he was playing with.
Meanwhile Alexander Semin has outperformed his role in six of the nine seasons while being at exactly 0.0 in another (which is perfect usage by the coach). The 2012-13 season was a shortened season and thus can cause funny things to happen with the numbers given the smaller sample of games. We can see that both Semin and Sharp’s numbers were at their worst that year.
Alexander Semin is not immune from criticism but his sample size in Carolina includes his shooting percentage slipping as well as his quality of teammate. In the last two seasons he is still performing at an acceptable level given the role his coaches have given him.
Production isn’t the only variable to pay attention to in a hard cap league. Term and cap hit are extremely important variables as well. Here is what both players contracts look like moving forward
Both players carry a healthy cap hit.
There is a reason the Blackhawks will be looking to move Patrick Sharp and that reason is the 5.9M cap hit. You see their superstar players (Toews/Kane) are finally getting their big boy raises this upcoming season and they need to shed salary. Chicago signing Artemi Panarin yesterday was their attempt at getting ahead of the curve on cutting salary. The writing is on the wall for Patrick Sharp.
The Blackhawks won’t be looking to give Sharp away but teams also know they have to move him.
Given that the Blackhawks targeted Antoine Vermette at the trade deadline for a first round pick perhaps they would overvalue Brandon Sutter and his 3.3M cap hit while shedding 2.6M off of their cap. The Penguins would also have to cut salary in other areas to fit in Sharp’s 5.9M cap hit. Buying out Rob Scuderi and trading Chris Kunitz/Nick Spaling would help alleviate the cap hit of Sharp.
Alexander Semin is currently 31 years old with three years remaining on his contract.
I don’t believe he is a great trade target but also not one that is as bad as some people think (assuming CAR retains salary).
If Carolina retained half his salary that puts the cap hit at 3.5M. A feasible trade idea would be swapping Kunitz for Semin + 50% salary retention. The Penguins would actually save a little on the cap with a move like that. Kunitz only has two years left on his deal which is one year shorter than Semin.
And let’s remember the Hurricanes don’t really have much leverage here. The alternative to not trading Semin away at three years of 50% salary retention would be this:
Six years of 2.33M in dead money against the cap doesn’t seem ideal.
Both of these players come with risk, but as mentioned above the Penguins are going to have to take on some risk with any veteran top six player they attempt to trade for. Teams don’t normally move top six winger talent unless they have some warts. Couple that with the fact Pittsburgh doesn’t have high end assets they are willing to move and you can see how this won’t be perfect scenario for the Penguins.
The alternative to not making a trade like the ones above is to move forward trusting that both Beau Bennett and Kasperi Kapanen can handle a top six role. Pittsburgh is between a rock and a hard place. There will be risk involved no matter what route they take. Their job moving forward will be to analyze the risk/reward of each potential decision.
Thanks for reading!
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