Recent Posts

Penguins Trade Talk: Does Vegas Need Reilly Smith? Is a Goalie Available?

The NHL trade chatter has finally picked up after a couple of months of stagnation when the focus was solely on the Calgary Flames. We can finally move past Calgary and look to the deadline. Injuries and playoff contention are creating openings and opportunities, including for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle […]

Penguins Grades: Toxic Power Play, Inexplicable Mistakes Crushing Season

Like peanut butter and jelly, Sidney Crosby and backhand goals, and Jaromir Jagr and a mullet, the Pittsburgh Penguins and self-inflicted losses with a sabotaging power play have become synonymous. Unlike the former examples, the latter is suffocating what was supposed to be a promising season. Nevermore was a greater microcosm of the Penguins’ season […]

Dan’s Daily: More Opinions on Dubas; How Penguins Get Younger

The Pittsburgh Penguins and president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas dominated the 24-hour news cycle. From Jake Guentzel’s future to Dubas’s admitted failure to find a shakeup trade and the Penguins’ desire to get younger, it’s all under the microscope and fueling the NHL trade talk. Elsewhere in the Daily, Auston Matthews is on a […]

PHN Daily: Guentzel Trade News & Reaction; Deadline Dominoes Fall

Jake Guentzel finally is off the NHL trade market. The Pittsburgh Penguins have sent him to Carolina for a handful of assets, one of them being winger Michael Bunting, in a deal was announced late Thursday evening. It’s not known if Guentzel was at PPG Paints Arena a few hours earlier, but most of his […]

How Penguins Survive without Guentzel; Kids ‘Drag (Malkin) Into Fight’ (+)

SEATTLE — The Pittsburgh Penguins are 4-1-1 since Jake Guentzel was placed on long-term injured reserve. Guentzel has another 10 days of his mandated 24-day LTIR absence and now has company because Bryan Rust is also out week-to-week, also with that most mysterious of hockey terms, an upper-body injury. Because of injuries somewhere between the […]

Go West; Penguins Game 56 vs. Canucks: Lines, Notes & How to Watch

It’s go big or go home for the Pittsburgh Penguins – except they won’t be going home – as they kick off their trip out west with a game Tuesday against the Canucks in Vancouver. The Penguins (26-21-8) need to win at a furious pace the rest of the season to get into the playoffs, […]

Penguins Postgame: This Can’t Continue

In one of the great cheesy late 1990s movies, Bruce Willis and his band of misfits who rocketed to space on a top-secret space shuttle to save the planet from an asteroid must radio to NASA that their mission has failed. Armageddon has a happy ending as the crew saves the day but the Pittsburgh […]

Penguins’ Bryan Rust Postgame Injury Update

Pittsburgh Penguins winger Bryan Rust tangled with Philadelphia Flyers defenders at the offensive blue line five minutes into the third period of the Penguins’ wild 7-6 win at PPG Paints Arena. Rust hunched over, shaking his left hand, and left the ice. He did not return. Coach Mike Sullivan updated Rust’s condition following the game, […]

Penguins Wrap: Lose Key Game, Top Winger & Maybe Some Hope

The Pittsburgh Penguins were surging toward serious contention for a playoff berth as the final days of February ticked off. Things changed, at least temporarily, when the calendar did. Early in the morning of March 1 — in the East, anyway — their three-game winning streak was snapped by a 2-0 defeat in Seattle, as […]

Penguins Grades: Team Battles Heartbreak and Distraction

The Pittsburgh Penguins were energetic and aggressive in the first period. They were utterly terrible in the second period. They got by later in the third period when they finally buckled down for a 5-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets at PPG Paints Arena. With the NHL trade rumors swirling around Penguins winger Guentzel […]

Devils Fire Ruff; Travis Green Interim Coach

The New Jersey Devils made a major move as the NHL trade deadline approached, but the Devils didn’t add — or trade — a player. Instead, they have fired coach Lindy Ruff and replaced him, on an interim basis, with associate coach Green. The move was announced by New Jersey’s president/GM Tom Fitzgerald, who broke […]

Penguins Mock Trades: Finding Good Fits For Jake Guentzel

The strong possibility, if not stark reality, that the Pittsburgh Penguins will indeed strip away assets in order to rebuild or retool at the NHL trade deadline became inescapable this week. Sure, some have clamored for it, but the team was pushing hard for a playoff spot, and future-leaning Penguins trades were not happening during […]

Do Lots of No-Trade Clauses = Few Trades Coming for Penguins?

CRANBERRY — Kyle Dubas remained noncommittal Wednesday about whether the Pittsburgh Penguins will be buyers or sellers — or neither — between now and the March 8 NHL trade deadline. That decision, he suggested, will be determined by how the Penguins perform — and where they stand in the Eastern Conference playoff race — as […]

Here’s One Place Where There’s No Penguins Trade Talk (+)

CRANBERRY — The Pittsburgh Penguins haven’t been sellers at the NHL trade deadline since 2006. Then again, it’s also been a long time since they were in as perilous of a position in the standings as they are now. In the wake of their 5-4 overtime loss to the New York Islanders Tuesday night at […]

Jake Guentzel Still Around, Participates in Penguins Skate

The NHL trade deadline hasn’t changed, and the reports about possible trades involving Pittsburgh Penguins winger Jake Guentzel haven’t died down, but that didn’t stop Guentzel from participating in the team’s  morning skate Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. Guentzel, who is on LTIR because of an upper-body injury and not eligible to be activated until […]

Could Guentzel’s No-Trade Clause Be Holding Up a Deal?

The NHL trade deadline, set for 3 p.m. Friday, is coming up on the horizon, and Jake Guentzel still is on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ payroll. Now, it’s possible — though rather unlikely — that the Penguins have reversed field and decided to try to re-sign Guentzel, who will be eligible for unrestricted free agency this […]