FanPost

Time to Move Sutter

While the Penguins offseason has been a major success thus far, I still think there is room to improve. Trading away James Neal for Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling was the right move to sure up the Pens bottom six, but it also was a skill downgrade. I’m not saying Hornqvist isn’t a suitable replacement for Neal, because he is certainly capable of scoring 30 goals when locked to the wing of Malkin, but another top six winger would help. With Duper coming off of knee surgery and reaching age 35 and Bennett’s injury woes who knows what could happen.

I personally believe the way to acquire another winger would be to get rid of Brandon Sutter who has underwhelmed since joining us from Carolina and seems to believe he is worth more than he actually is. He does show spurts of brilliance, but he is not and never will be Jordan Staal. It certainly doesn't help that his top line mate this year in terms of TOI% was Tanner Glass, but I still think Sutter is expendable. Sutter has been unable to take as much defensive responsibility as Staal could, which has forced both Crosby and Malkin to accept less favorable ZS% and caused their production to decline (Crosby’s more than Malkin) as a result. Sutter also doesn't provide as much offense as Staal did and gets absolutely crushed in terms of possession.

While I am not a fan of Sutter, I think many may be including some NHL GM’s who may want to improve down the middle. A few teams I think could be trade partners are Buffalo, Edmonton, Vancouver and New Jersey. All four could use a center upgrade and might see Sutter as a player who could provide them value.

Buffalo— Cody Hodgson or Drew Stafford

Edmonton— David Perron

Vancouver— Alexandre Burrows

New Jersey—Jaromir Jagr

Let me know what you guys think.



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