The McGroarty-Yager Debate Begins: Which NHL Team Won the Jets-Penguins Trade?

What will Rutger McGroarty bring to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and how good will Brayden Yager be for the Winnipeg Jets? Prospect expert Tony Ferrari has the lowdown.

The Rutger McGroarty saga is finally over, as the Winnipeg Jets have traded the American winger to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Brayden Yager. 

The teams swapped the 14th overall picks from the 2022 and 2023 NHL drafts, ending the tense relationship between McGroarty and the Jets with a prospect swap that should make everyone happy.

As with any trade, the first thought on everyone’s mind among both fan bases is, “Who won?”

Although the full answer is far more nuanced, it can be boiled down to each team getting a prospect of relatively similar value but a different style. It’s as if the teams traded a KitKat for M&Ms.

Let’s start with McGroarty, the newest member of the Penguins. 

The captain of the American world junior team that won gold in January, McGroarty is a tactician on the ice who is always looking to swoop in at the right moment. 

He isn’t often the player hauling the puck up ice in transition, but he’s always in a position to receive a pass and make something happen in the offensive zone.

McGroarty isn’t the most fleet of foot, which has always been the knock on him, but his ability to read the ice and analyze where to be offensively largely makes up for it.

He plays like a shark in the water, hunting down open space and attacking when the time is right. He will fade into the background and float high in the zone. Right as the play develops and a teammate is looking to pass to the slot, there’s McGroarty weaving through traffic and attacking downhill. His feel for a play as it grows is impressive.

McGroarty's playmaking has also improved noticeably while playing for the NCAA's Michigan Wolverines over the last two seasons. He isn’t firing every puck he gets on net, which he once tended to do. He shoulder checks and scans before receiving the puck and knows his options of bumping the puck out wide or hitting a return pass with precision. He’s always developed his passing off the wall and in the corners.

He’s developed the ability to make quicker reads, and rather than coming out with the puck and scanning, he will pass from the pile or work the cycle more consistently. 

McGroarty has also always been a physical player at 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds, winning puck battles and coming out of the frey with the puck on his stick. 

He is an excellent complementary player who can thrive with a line driver down the middle. In Pittsburgh, he could have just that with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin at center.

When looking at Winnipeg’s newest prospect, Yager plays a different style of game in a lot of ways. 

Playing on the powerhouse Moose Jaw Warriors, Yager was a key piece in helping them win their first WHL championship and go to the Memorial Cup. Although they didn’t win the Memorial Cup, Yager was one of their better players throughout the season, and there may be even more to give.

Yager is a better skater who plays a bigger role in transition, attacking on the rush and creating offense on the fly. He can absolutely fire the puck in motion, shooting off either foot, and he can unload a one-time bomb. The biggest complaint about him as a shooter is that he’s put such a focus on being a more well-rounded offensive attacker and isn’t shooting as often as he could be.

His focus over the last couple of years has been on growing his game as a playmaker, looking to feed his teammates with crisp, hard passes. 

Yager uses his speed to back defenders off and draw attention and then fires pucks to the slot or to a trailing teammate. He’s a straightforward passer who can use his speed to create room for himself.

One added bonus for the Jets is that Yager is a center with the skating ability to stick at the position moving forward. There have been flashes of good defensive habits, and with some maturity and added growth, he could become a fairly reliable middle-six center who brings some scoring upside as a passer and shooter.

So we now come back to who won the trade and whether the swap of 14th-overall picks was a coup for either squad. 

The Penguins got a player who could thrive with Crosby and company, riding shotgun and bringing a physical element while also being ready to step into the NHL lineup immediately. Everywhere he’s played from the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, USA U-20 team and the University of Michigan, McGroarty has been praised for his leadership. He has the personality that the media will love from Day 1.

The Jets made the best of a tough situation. They come away with a player who may be a bit further away but also has more impact outside of the offensive zone. 

Yager brings many of the same off-ice intangibles as McGroarty, being awarded the WHL's most sportsmanlike player in the last two years and the CHL sportsman of the year this past season. He’s been a leader for the Warriors and will be one of the WHL’s best players heading into next season.

From an on-ice perspective, this is a rare win-win for the Jets and Penguins, with both teams coming away with a talented young player. 

Overall, this is a win for the Jets, though, because they had their hand forced with a top prospect requesting a trade out of town and not having to give him up for pennies on the dollar. 

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