Could the Pittsburgh Penguins Keep UFA Players as Own Rentals?

Is There a Chance the Pittsburgh Penguins are Buyers and Sellers?

Anthony Di Marco of the Daily Faceoff was on TSN Radio on Monday and was asked what the plan is for the Pittsburgh Penguins at the trade deadline. Di Marco felt the Penguins could use their UFAs as their own rentals given their position in the standings.

NHLRumors.com Transcriptions

Host: “Let’s take a look around the Eastern Conference here quickly. I know we’re getting closer to the first stage of the trade deadline. Then the trade deadline coming when everybody comes back from the Olympics. But we’re already in trade bait mode, looking at boards and who can move and who can’t move.

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Such an interesting team right now is the Pittsburgh Penguins, who everybody thought were going to be selling off assets at this point in time, with 9 UFAs on their roster. But is it possible for the Penguins to become buyers somehow, even though they may have to get rid of some of their UFAs?”

Anthony Di Marco: “I mean, it’s such a weird season, Sean, that, like, potentially you could be buyers and sellers. Like, look, if I was a betting man, I would say that they were just going to roll with what they have the Penguins, that is. Just because of the nature of where they are at organizationally.

And maybe you hang on to your own players, and you call them like those own rentals. Like, hang on to Kevin Hayes, hang on to Anthony Mantha, hang on to Evgeni Malkin, Connor Clifton, and what have you.

But I just, I don’t know if I could see Kyle Dubas actually going out on the market and spending assets. For the first time in what seems like forever, the Penguins are well set up in the draft.

They will have their first-round pick in each of the next two or three years, rather than two second- and two third-round picks in each of the next three years. So I just, I think that they’ve done enough, the roster that is, to tell Kyle Dubas, okay, don’t mess with what’s working, or at least what’s treading water.

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But I just, I can’t see him going out and trying to, like, unseed the cupboard on a team that, look it’s the Metropolitan Division, so you could see a plausible scenario where they go to the second or third round, but realistically, this is nothing more than just a playoff team at best.”

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