In a move that brushed right up against the official NHL trade deadline at 3 p.m. ET on Monday, the Pittsburgh Penguins landed winger Rickard Rakell from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for forwards Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon, prospect goaltender Calle Clang and a 2022 second-round draft pick.
Which team came out ahead in the deal? Let's grade both GMs involved:
Pittsburgh Penguins: A
General manager Ron Hextall won the waiting game. The Penguins' trade for Rakell happened late in the day at the NHL trade deadline. It didn't involve a first-round pick. It didn't involve one of the team's top prospects. It did involve an offense-driving winger who slides right into their top six.
Rakell is adept at both getting into scoring areas and creating offense off the rush. According to Stathletes data, Rakell is 25th in the NHL in shots off the rush in all situations among forwards. His offense has rebounded significantly this season -- not a shock, given it's a contract year -- but Rakell has also played some of his best defense this season, too.
Hextall told me earlier this season that if the Penguins were going to make a trade, it would have to involve a player from his roster going the other way. Turns out it was two of them: Aston-Reese and Simon. Aston-Reese is a great depth defender but by no means untouchable. Simon was in his second stint with the Penguins, and he was just as offensively confounding as he was in the first go-round. Their total cap hit ($2,475,000) combined with Anaheim's salary retention on Rakell (35%) means the Penguins get their new forward at $2,463,139 (for a cap savings).
The Penguins have some goalie depth in their pipeline behind Tristan Jarry, who isn't going anywhere anyway. So dealing away Clang was from a position of strength.
Given all of that context, this is a big win for the Penguins on paper. Now, Rakell has to back it up with his play. Something tells us with a contract on the line, he will.
Anaheim Ducks: B
Let me preface this by saying that I think Ducks GM Pat Verbeek did an outstanding job at this trade deadline. He flipped Josh Manson, Hampus Lindholm, Kodie Curran and Nicolas Deslauriers into a first-rounder, four seconds, four NHL roster players and a couple of prospects -- one of whom, Drew Helleson, could be a solid NHL player.
But to have Rakell dangling at the deadline, given the lack of anything close to his age, abilities and experience available on the wing, getting a mid-second-rounder back from the Penguins rather than a first-rounder from anyone is a little disappointing. It doesn't make this a disastrous move by any stretch, though.
Simon and Aston-Reese are in this deal to make the money work, although I wonder if the latter could be retained to help out the bottom six of a rebuilding team. Clang is an interesting pickup here. The Ducks have Lukas Dostal in their system but not much behind him in the goalie pipeline. In Clang, they have a 19-year-old who played professionally this season in the Swedish Hockey League and made the past two world junior teams for Sweden. There's no telling how his development will shake out, but he's a 6-foot-2 netminder with a hint of upside.
Again, we can't hate this return for an expiring contract. We just wanted a little more, given the buzz around Rakell.