Whether or if the Pittsburgh Penguins will move forward Jake Guentzel has been one of the hottest topics of conversation in the run-up to the NHL Trade Deadline.
Given that Guentzel is in the final year of a five-year contract and the Penguins are outside of the postseason picture, there’s a fair likelihood that people will call about the 29-year-old, even though general manager Kyle Dubas hasn’t made it known that he’s available.
But when Guentzel departed Wednesday night’s game against the Florida Panthers due to an upper-body injury, those conversations took a knock.
The next day, he was put on injured reserve and could be out for up to four weeks. Guentzel was placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR), which requires him to miss a minimum of 10 games, or 24 days, which would push him past the cutoff date.
However, Guentzel will still be in the midst of trade negotiations during that time because there is no doubting his ability—especially since he is expected to return sometime next month.
Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk explain why other general managers will continue to be interested in signing Guentzel in Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Pittsburgh Penguins now have to contend with losing one of their top players, which makes things strange.
It will produce this feeling that, should they re-enter the quest and succeed, perhaps there will be a cause to relocate him. Perhaps this four-week period will devalue him.
Seravalli Frank: We do have a slightly clearer picture because he was placed [on LTIR] retroactively to the injury. Does this reduce his worth as a trade? No, is my response to that. With Jake Guentzel, we have a big enough sample size to determine how significant a player he is, and if that timeframe is accurate and any team making a trade for him would have access to his medical data, I don’t see this turning into a major roadblock.
