Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boy. I’ll be honest, trade deadline is a great day, lots of wild stuff happens. I wouldn’t have expected this.
Today, the Penguins have traded a conditional 2021 third-round draft pick for the storied legend, Patrick Marleau. Currently, Marleau is 40 years old, signed through the rest of the season and only has a cap hit of $700k.
He’s a legend. No one can deny that, regardless of how old he might be right now. He was an NHL All Star in the ’04, ’07 and ’09 seasons. He’s in the midst of his 22nd season, and has played the 5th most games in NHL history with 1715 played. That’s INSANE, he’s 52 games shy of tying Gordie Howe. Let’s take a look at his stats so far:
- 561 goals
- 625 assists
- 1186 points
- 109 game winning goals
Impressive numbers, while also serving as captain of the Sharks for 5 seasons and alternate captain for the Sharks and Maple Leafs for numerous other seasons. This seasons he’s played in 58 games, scored 10 goals and 10 assists for a total of 20 points. Not a bad season for his age, and not a bad season by any means really.
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Now where will he fit? Let’s take a look at what fellow TFTB writer thinks:
I would disagree. I’m hard-pressed to think we gave up anything for Marleau just to put him on the fourth line. I’d say third line at minimum. These would be my projected lines:
- Zucker – Crosby – Simon (reluctantly, still don’t think Simon should be a 1st liner)
- McCann – Malkin – Rust
- Tanev – Blueger – Marleau
- Kahun – Bjugstad – Hornqvist
I think that would be ideal, based on the fact that Sid wants Simon on his line, and Sid gets what Sid wants. I’m still not a huge Hornqvist fan, I think all he’s got really is that he’s grindy. He is vicious on the puck. I’m sure people will say “OH BUT HE GOT A HAT-TRICK THE OTHER NIGHT”. Ok…that doesn’t change the fact that he is obnoxiously streaky, and is more a grinder than anything else. It’s also not an issue when our 4th line regularly plays 3rd line minutes so…
Another option I think, and not my preferred but I wouldn’t be surprised if they fiddled around with it a bit if things aren’t working out is testing Marleau on the 2nd line, with Malkin. Swapping Rust and Marleau to see if that can spark Marleau and get him going, as Malkin has been hot lately. I don’t want them to do that, not while the McCann-Malkin-Rust line is playing the way they are recently, but it’s an option I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sully take.
One other thing, I see a lot of people thinking that this was a bad trade. Was it? Personally, no I don’t think it was. A conditional pick has the potential to be good or to be bad, getting Marleau bolsters us now. The Penguins need to be in a win now mentality, with our all stars reluctantly aging. I think they might still have a few more years before we hit the rebuild phase, but it’s a good chance to win now for potentially nothing of value. We DEFINITELY need a defenseman, more than anything else, but the trade for Marleau is a cheap, cost effective move in my opinion. I don’t know about you, but I trust Rutherford.
#LGP
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