Grading the Jake Guentzel trade: Hurricanes land top-tier winger, Penguins opt for quantity

Another one bites the dust.

Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas made one of the tougher calls of his managerial career on Thursday night, sending star winger Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for four players and two conditional draft picks.

It’s a tough deal to swallow for many Penguins fans, especially those who grew up watching Guentzel ride shotgun with Sidney Crosby all the way to the Stanley Cup in 2017. Now, Guentzel is gone and the Penguins are on track to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive season. Time flies.

On the other hand, the Hurricanes now look even more formidable and stack up pretty favorably against some of the top Stanley Cup contenders in the Eastern Conference. For a team that doesn’t often make significant mid-season splashes, the Hurricanes issued a big statement on Thursday night.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll still have anything worth discussing on Deadline Day itself, but that’s a problem for Friday. Until then, it’s time for more Daily Faceoff Trade Grades!

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Receive:

LW Jake Guentzel, 29 – $4.5 million cap hit (25% retained, down from $6 million), pending UFA
D Ty Smith, 23 – $775,000 cap hit, pending RFA

It’s a bit novel to see Carolina entering the fray for a player who could end up being a pure rental — although, as Daily Faceoff‘s Frank Seravalli indicated on Thursday night, the Hurricanes definitely have an interest in potentially extending their relationship with Guentzel beyond just this season. He’s an elite complementary player who projects to slot in next to Sebastian Aho on Carolina’s top line and power-play unit.

Did you know Guentzel has been at or above a point-per-game pace in four of his last five seasons, including this one? The Nebraska product is genuinely one of the better wingers in the sport, having driven play considerably well in his own right while skating alongside Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. Not just anyone can hang with the best players in the world, but Guentzel sure can. Through 503 career games over parts of eight NHL seasons (all with Pittsburgh), Guentzel has amassed 219 goals and 466 points; he’s added 34 goals and 58 points in 58 playoff contests.

Here’s the kicker: Carolina didn’t even have to give up a guaranteed first-round pick to get him. Unless they make it to this year’s Stanley Cup Final, all the Hurricanes will have to part ways with is a 2024 second-rounder. If the ‘Canes do make it all the way, you can bet they’ll feel just fine about sending their first-round pick to the Penguins. Guentzel does already have a Stanley Cup ring of his own, of course, and he’s one of the strongest playoff performers in the game today.

This is a slam dunk for the Hurricanes, reminiscent of when they added Mark Recchi from these very same Penguins at the deadline in 2006. And even if, as Recchi did, Guentzel returns to the Penguins after just one playoff run in Carolina, it’ll still have been worth it. When you’re in the middle of a Stanley Cup window, you need to take big swings. The Hurricanes just did that without sacrificing any of their top picks or prospects. That’s worthy of the highest marks.

If Smith turns into anything, feel free to add another plus onto the grade.

Grade: A+

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

Receive:

LW Michael Bunting, 28 – $4.5 million cap hit through 2026
C Vasily Ponomarev, 21 – $795,000 cap hit through 2025
C Ville Koivunen, 20 – $805,833 cap hit through 2026
RW Cruz Lucius, 19 – Unsigned draft pick
2024 second-round pick (conditional)
2024 fifth-round pick (conditional)

As we did with the Elias Lindholm deal back in February, we’re going to go through this piece-by-piece for simplicity’s sake. Here goes nothing:

Bunting: Much like Andrei Kuzmenko in the Lindholm deal, Bunting is mostly here for salary cap purposes. He’s a perfectly serviceable middle-six winger with whom Dubas is extremely familiar from his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs and, before that, the Soo Greyhounds. Bunting wasn’t a terrific fit in Carolina but the Penguins are clearly banking on him bouncing back, perhaps even on a line with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. While he certainly isn’t a key piece to the return, Bunting will have his uses in Pittsburgh.

Ponomarev: The Hurricanes originally selected Ponomarev in the second round (No. 53 overall) of the 2020 NHL Draft. The 21-year-old Russian has shown himself to be a capable top-six AHL forward over the last three seasons but only managed to draw into two games with the Hurricanes over that span. Ponomarev is a skilled 5’10” center who could play NHL games down the stretch for a Penguins team in desperate need of a bit more offensive panache.

Koivunen: Now this is intriguing. Koivunen is another recent second-round pick (No. 51 overall in 2021) who has put up gaudy numbers in Finland this season. The 6′ center is sixth in the entire Liiga with 55 points in 57 games with Kärpät thus far in 2023–24. That said, the Liiga is far from being the strongest level in Europe and Koivunen managed just one point in 12 AHL games with the Chicago Wolves in 2022–23. It’ll be interesting to see what Koivunen can do if he spends all of next season in North America. With a bit of luck, the 20-year-old Finn could turn into a middle-six NHLer down the line.

Lucius: Here’s who might be the biggest wild card in this deal. Cruz Lucius is the younger brother of Jets 2021 first-round pick Chaz Lucius and the top scorer on the Wisconsin Badgers this season. The 2022 fourth-round pick (No. 124 overall) won’t turn 20 until next month and could stay at Wisconsin for two more years after this one. It’s far from a sure thing that Lucius’ game will translate to the pro ranks but it’s understandable that the Penguins would take a chance on someone with his NCAA production.

The picks: This is where the return starts to fall apart. The prospects aren’t bad, even if they aren’t Carolina’s real blue-chip guys, but it’s a little bit ridiculous that the Penguins couldn’t get more than a conditional second-round pick for a player of Guentzel’s pedigree. The condition is extremely restrictive, too: Pittsburgh only gets Carolina’s 2024 first if the Hurricanes win at least three playoff rounds this year. But the condition on the fifth-rounder is even worse: Carolina only transfers it to Pittsburgh if they win the Stanley Cup. The chances of Pittsburgh coming away with both picks are pretty low.

On an individual level, there are some solid pieces here. Taken together, it’s a pretty weak return for the best winger Sidney Crosby has ever had. Yes, it’s a buyer’s market, but it’s genuinely difficult to fathom that Dubas couldn’t have pulled a guaranteed first-round pick from someone. He might’ve had a good reason to pick quantity over quality — we don’t know what the other offers looked like, after all — but that doesn’t necessarily make the return any better.

We’ll have to wait and see whether the prospects pan out. Until then … woof.

Grade: C–