Kyle Dubas alluded to the possibility of a quiet trade deadline day for the Penguins when he spoke on the Penguins' weekly radio show on Wednesday.
"I think at the deadline, it's seen as a time where I think that you have to act," he said then. "And I think we've already acted. But it doesn't mean that we ever stop trying to improve the team."
The Penguins explored various trades -- from taking on salary in three-team deals to acquire assets, improving the team in other aspects, but the only trade that came to fruition on Friday was sending a third-round pick to Detroit for Elmer Soderblom, a projected bottom-six winger.
"I think everyone would be more excited if there was a lot more movement, especially the folks assembled here today and the fans," Dubas said when he spoke after the deadline. "But I can only speak from our perspective, we tried to get the players in earlier, because the types of players that we're trading for and have traded for throughout the year are either guys that are going to be here a while, or maybe wasn't going perfectly where they were. So the more runway you have to get them up and running, rather than put them into the blender right now, coming in, playing back-to-back games on the weekend and so forth, could be a lot."
Had the Penguins remained quiet on the trade market throughout the year, and today they made a big splash by moving Tristan Jarry and Sam Poulin for Stuart Skinner, Sam Girard and two second-round picks, then traded Danton Heinen, a third- and fourth-round pick for Egor Chinakhov, then sent Valtteri Puustinen and a seventh-rounder out for Ilya Solovyov, that would have been a pretty solid deadline haul and an exciting day. But the Penguins made their big moves early, and aside from this brief stretch ahead while Sidney Crosby is sidelined and Evgeni Malkin is facing suspension, find themselves in a pretty good spot as a result.
Could the Penguins have added more today? Sure. But when one looks at the current roster when healthy, it's pretty hard to identify glaring holes or trades that could be made that wouldn't have disrupted the chemistry and a lot of the good the Penguins have done to this point.
In the end, the best move the Penguins did on deadline day could have been the moves they didn't make at all.
THE ASYLUM
Trade deadline quiet for Penguins
Kyle Dubas alluded to the possibility of a quiet trade deadline day for the Penguins when he spoke on the Penguins' weekly radio show on Wednesday.
"I think at the deadline, it's seen as a time where I think that you have to act," he said then. "And I think we've already acted. But it doesn't mean that we ever stop trying to improve the team."
The Penguins explored various trades -- from taking on salary in three-team deals to acquire assets, improving the team in other aspects, but the only trade that came to fruition on Friday was sending a third-round pick to Detroit for Elmer Soderblom, a projected bottom-six winger.
"I think everyone would be more excited if there was a lot more movement, especially the folks assembled here today and the fans," Dubas said when he spoke after the deadline. "But I can only speak from our perspective, we tried to get the players in earlier, because the types of players that we're trading for and have traded for throughout the year are either guys that are going to be here a while, or maybe wasn't going perfectly where they were. So the more runway you have to get them up and running, rather than put them into the blender right now, coming in, playing back-to-back games on the weekend and so forth, could be a lot."
Had the Penguins remained quiet on the trade market throughout the year, and today they made a big splash by moving Tristan Jarry and Sam Poulin for Stuart Skinner, Sam Girard and two second-round picks, then traded Danton Heinen, a third- and fourth-round pick for Egor Chinakhov, then sent Valtteri Puustinen and a seventh-rounder out for Ilya Solovyov, that would have been a pretty solid deadline haul and an exciting day. But the Penguins made their big moves early, and aside from this brief stretch ahead while Sidney Crosby is sidelined and Evgeni Malkin is facing suspension, find themselves in a pretty good spot as a result.
Could the Penguins have added more today? Sure. But when one looks at the current roster when healthy, it's pretty hard to identify glaring holes or trades that could be made that wouldn't have disrupted the chemistry and a lot of the good the Penguins have done to this point.
In the end, the best move the Penguins did on deadline day could have been the moves they didn't make at all.
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