Ron Hextall should do whatever it takes to land Max Domi for the Pittsburgh Penguins forward core.
It’s no secret things have been rough for the Pittsburgh Penguins this season compared to some of the past campaigns. They’re the oldest team in the NHL and while they refuse to believe their slow starts to games and other issues are related to that, it certainly seems that it could be the case.
Even with the right additions, it’s hard to definitively say that the Penguins could go from fringe playoff team to Stanley Cup contender. They don’t have a lot of cap space and they’re certainly not going to get any younger.
However, keeping the core three around signaled their intention to try and maximize what is left of their respective careers and go for one last Stanley Cup title.
General manager Ron Hextall has been entirely too patient with the current version of the roster. It’s always fun to think about what would have happened by now had Jim Rutherford still been in charge of roster personnel moves.
While I’m not big on the whole “make a trade just to shake things up” mentality, that might be exactly what the Penguins need. However, the trade must be of consequence because they don’t need to add another average player to what’s been a very average roster so far this year.
If Hextall wants to swing for the fences, he should find a way to acquire Max Domi from the Chicago Blackhawks.
Domi carries a cap hit of just $3 million on an expiring contract. With the Penguins’ current crop of free agents, it might be hard to keep Domi beyond this season while also extending contracts to guys like Jason Zucker and Tristan Jarry. But Domi is on a very affordable deal and is the type of player that comes with enough flexibility to make the Penguins lineup much better.
The 27-year old former first-round pick has 14 goals and 34 points in 47 games for the lowly Blackhawks. He’s been one of the few bright spots for them at this point.
Domi is naturally a winger but has capably played center in the past. He has plenty of scoring ability and also has enough snarl that he can protect some of the star players who often find themselves getting suckered into fights. Domi has fought ten times in his career and took on Penguins’ defenseman Marcus Pettersson back in 2020.
His career season came in 2018-19’ when he scored 28 goals and recorded 72 points across a full 82 games for the Montreal Canadiens. While he hasn’t gotten back to the 20-goal plateau since, he could benefit vastly from playing with either of the Penguins’ top-six centers, much in the way that Rickard Rakell has since his move to Pittsburgh.
Now that Jeff Carter has been moved to the wing and the Penguins don’t have a true third line center, the Penguins could also acquire Domi to take over that role as he’d provide more scoring than Blueger would (14 goals to Teddy Blueger’s one). This would allow Mike Sullivan to bump Blueger back down to the fourth line and use Ryan Poehling as a winger on that line.
If they chose to use Domi as a winger in the top-six, they’d likely be best using him next to Evgeni Malkin and Zucker, move Rakell back onto Crosby’s line, and move Bryan Rust into a role on the third line where he may be more successful anchoring a line with someone like Blueger and Brock McGinn and giving Rust even more penalty-killing time.
The acquisition cost would be fairly steep but as the Penguins have found out over the years, it is definitely worth taking the risk to maximize their window. Hextall may be resistant to trading their first-round pick but it likely would have to be as they don’t have many blue-chip prospects to trade.
With minimal cap space, the Penguins would have to part with a roster player as well. Kasperi Kapanen is under-performing but would even the salary that would be going each way with his $3.2 million cap hit and a fresh start.
Domi has come up in trade discussions for a few seasons now. The Penguins have been constantly linked to him but this feels like a perfect time to finally pull the trigger on such a deal. Domi provides too much flexibility for Hextall and the Penguins not be intrigued by his presence in the lineup and he’d certainly be a welcomed jolt of energy to a team that has been very flat for far too long.
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