Penguins inform the rest of the league about promising trade bait

The Pittsburgh Penguins have reportedly informed the rest of the teams across the NHL that one of their players is up for grabs. According to insider Frank Seravalli for Daily Face-Off, the Penguins have placed defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph on the market, basically sending open house invitations on the young blue liner.

The insider explains how GM Ron Hextall has informed the other teams of Joseph’s availability seeing that his Penguins have nine defensemen under NHL contracts and risk losing one of them to waivers.

“I’m keeping a close eye on the Pittsburgh Penguins and their blue line, and that’s because last week Penguins general manager Ron Hextall sent a note to his 31 counterparts, letting them know that Pierre-Olivier Joseph is available via trade, and that’s just part of their process that they’re going through on their back end. When you consider the addition of someone like Jan Rutta and Jeff Petry, all of a sudden numbers get really interesting in a hurry. So, when you get to this time of year, the other part is when you send out a note like that, teams are also kind of calling your bluff. Okay, P-O Joseph is available, well that must mean that you’re in a numbers crunch, and eventually if he’s the guy you’re singling out, well then you may need to put him on waivers at some point, so why would we trade for a player we could just pick up on waivers in a few days?

“So, the Penguins have a decision to make. Are they going to be keeping P-O Joseph or are they going to put Chad Ruhwedel on waivers, Mark Friedman? Those are the guys in that mix for that 6-7 or 7-8-9 spot in the Penguins organization. P-O Joseph is just one name to keep an eye on that has been out there in trade talks over the last week.”

The waiver wire has surely been heating up since it opened last week and the Penguins probably will attempt anything to lose a player for nothing on waivers.

Let’s keep a close eye on this like Seravalli does!