The rental-averse Carolina Hurricanes finally made their all-in move on Thursday night, acquiring Jake Guentzel from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In return, the Hurricanes sent a conditional 2024 second rounder that can become a first-rounder if they advance to the Stanley Cup Final, a conditional 5th round pick, winger Michael Bunting, and prospects Ville Koivunen, Vasili Ponomarev, and Lucius Fox.
The Penguins also sent depth defenseman Ty Smith to the Hurricanes in the deal.
The Hurricanes have been a contending force in the NHL for about a half decade now, and the missing piece in the postseason has always been an elite goal-scoring winger threat.
When Guentzel burst onto the scene, he did so as a rookie in 2017, the second year of Pittsburgh's back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
He scored 13 goals in 25 playoff games that year to cement himself immediately as a Penguins hero, and he's backed that up his entire career with 465 points in 504 career games.
Still just 29, Guentzel has a lot of good hockey left ahead of him, but his value is at an all-time high, and the Penguins are at an inflection point where it might make sense to move on from a franchise cornerstone to set the stage for the next generation.
Doing so would very much not go over well with the fan base, which expects to be in win-now mode as long as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang are in black and gold.
Guentzel has excelled this season, putting up 22 goals and 29 assists for 51 points in 49 games. If he stays healthy and stays above a point-per-game pace, it would be the fourth such season in his career, though just the second where he didn't miss significant time due to injury.
It's incredibly rare for offensive talents of Guentzel's level to become available at the trade deadline, and even rarer for one with his sterling track record of playoff success.
In 58 career postseason games, Guentzel has 58 points, putting him 9th in postseason production among active players aged 30 or younger.
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