The Pittsburgh Penguins had a quiet trade deadline because no one wanted to pay for struggling players.

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Penguins were expected to have a busy trade deadline with a plethora of moves as they appear to be waiving the white flag on the 2023-24 season. The postseason looks far out of reach, and several players are just not working in their organization.

Quite a few players drew varying degrees of interest, but the Penguins had around 10 to 13 players possibly on the chopping block. Primary amongst them was Jake Guentzel, who was moved to the Carolina Hurricanes for a haul of prospects.

Chad Ruhwedel and Magnus Hellberg were traded on deadline day, but that was it for Kyle Dubas at his first deadline with the Penguins. What gives? Should there not have been far more faces moved out to begin building for the final years of Sidney Crosby’s career?

According to Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts Podcast, there was interest in quite a few players, but no one would catch an adequate return like Guentzel.

“I think they were going to try and trade other people and keep Guentzel,” Friedman said. “I think they realized the value for some of these other people wasn’t as high as they had hoped.”

Players like Reilly Smith and Lars Eller were rumored to be catching the eye of quite a few teams, but no one is going to pay a king’s ransom for those names.

Smith has looked off his game all season, with just 11 goals in 57 games. Eller is a fine piece for someone’s bottom six, but that’s it; he’s just fine.

He'll also be 35 years old soon, and teams don't want to spend prospects on an aging player like that.

The Penguins wanted prospects that are ready to make the jump to the NHL, but those assets wouldn't have been in the cards for what they were trying to sell. Smith costs a lot of money and isn't performing. Eller is aging and not worth high-end prospects.

Friedman believes the Penguins weren’t going to get a return on the other names they had available and had no choice but to sell Guentzel for as much as possible.

“If they really wanted to add pieces, it was going to have to be Guentzel,” Friedman said. “I really believe they wanted to keep him and move others. And then reality hit them about what some of the worth of those other players were.”

It sounds like the Penguins tried to move a group of players, but considering their poor season, teams weren't willing to fork over a lot in exchange.

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