With the Pittsburgh Penguins standing on the outside looking in of the NHL's Wild Card playoff race, there's plenty of speculation about what GM Kyle Dubas might do at the league's March 4th trade deadline.
Will Dubas sell off pending free agents like Jake Guentzel, Jeff Carter and Alex Nedeljkovic? Or will he look to load up and make a push for a playoff spot?
How the team plays between now and the first week of March will have a huge impact on what Dubas decides to do, but he's made it clear that he hasn't made any firm decisions just yet. In particular, Dubas came out yesterday and squashed any rumors that he's been shopping Guentzel on the trade market.
"I don't think that Ben Hankinson (Guentzel agent) with his comments a few weeks ago meant for it to kind of develop into the level of noise it's gotten to," Dubas said Wednesday on "The GM Show," a team-produced podcast distributed by the Penguins. "Just in knowing Ben and how much he cares about his clients, and about Jake and my relationship with him, I don't think that was his intention whatsoever."
"I think a lot of people have tried to say that when he said 'it could get ugly,' that was about the contract. I don't think so. I think he was more talking about ... the team and where it's going to go in the next several seasons. So I didn't take it as offensive or as anything other than Ben trying to do right by his client."
Dubas then stated he hasn't talked to other clubs about Guentzel's potential availability.
"We haven't had any conversations with any other teams about Jake, so anything that's out there is pure speculation," the executive said. "That's really as simple as that. We'll continue to go through the season here and I'll continue to evaluate where we're at, and then either at the All-Star break or after the season, we'll do what's best for everybody - best for the Penguins, best for Jake - and we'll determine that together."
The 29 year old Guentzel has 19 goals and 46 points in 42 games with the Penguins so far this season and is set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. He's been a Penguin his entire career and is coming off a five year deal that pays him $6 million annually.
