Dan Sanford

Sports Editor

das6267@psu.edu

At 5:00 Monday evening, many NHL teams looked substantially different than they were the night before. The trade deadline had come to a close, and teams were gearing up for the playoffs or looking ahead to the draft, depending on their return.

For the Pittsburgh Penguins, they are left in a difficult situation. The team has been doing well for the season, and comfortably sit tied for second in the division with the New York Rangers. Recently, however, they have discovered they have had trouble with beating teams who are performing better than them in the standings.

They have been unable to defeat the conference-leading Florida Panthers in either match they have faced each other in thus far, and had difficulty closing out games against the division-leading Carolina Hurricanes, losing the first two matches (the second of which was a comeback for the Canes in overtime). Although they have only played once, the Penguins won an uncomfortably close 1-0 goalie battle against the Rangers this season, another cause for concern; at the same time, they have shown they can handle the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning, by significant margins in two out of their three matches.

So what do you do if you manage the Penguins? Go for someone too high in value, and you could end up giving up too much of what you would need for a playoff run. Don’t do enough, and you can’t expect the team to reach those adversaries they struggled against this season in the playoffs. So Ron Hextall looked to the Anaheim Ducks.

Well out of playoff contention, the Ducks held a sale of their biggest names and most of the leadership corps of the team. Although Anaheim attempted to re-sign each, Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson, and Rickard Rakell were all dealt by Monday evening. Hextall spotted a sweet deal, and agreed to trade premier penalty-killing forward Zach Aston-Reese, utility forward Dominik Simon, and a 2022 second-round draft pick to the Ducks for Rakell. Rakell, 28, was a Swedish talent and former first-round pick by the Ducks who the Penguins hope can boost their scoring; Rakell has 16 goals and 12 assists through 51 games with Anaheim this year.

On the other side of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Flyers are having a season to forget. The Beacon chronicled the struggles of this team back in January, and things have not gotten much better. They sit near the bottom of their division, just ahead of the once again disappointing New Jersey Devils. Faced with an expiring contract and the team going in the opposite direction of progress, Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher was forced to make a very hard decision. Claude Giroux had been the Flyers’ captain since January 2013, and approaching unrestricted free agency, was asked by Fletcher to waive his no-movement clause in his contract. 

After sifting through his options, which included the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, and most notably the Colorado Avalanche, Fletcher traded Giroux to the Eastern Conference leaders, the Florida Panthers, in exchange for first-round prospect Owen Tippett, the Panthers’ 2024 first-round draft pick, and a 2023 third-round draft pick. Going with Giroux to Florida were minor-league prospects Connor Bunnaman and German Rubtsov. Giroux, the centerpiece of the deal, had 18 goals and 24 assists to lead the Flyers through 57 games. He is now yet another star piece in the already loaded Panthers roster. The Panthers have now spent their 2022, 2023, and 2024 first-round picks in trade deals for Samson Reinhart, Ben Chiarot, and now Giroux; Chiarot was acquired Wednesday from the Montreal Canadiens, while Reinhart came over in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres this past offseason. It is now clear that the Panthers are pushing for their first Stanley Cup victory now, not later. With the Colorado Avalanche leading the league in the standings and making many small deals with Minnesota, Anaheim, and Dallas, among others to strengthen their lower-end talent, could we see a re-match between the Avs and the Panthers from 1996 in the Stanley Cup Finals? The wait will be over soon.