Penguins acquire Mikael Granlund from Nashville Predators

Per Chris Johnston and Elliotte Friedman, the Pittsburgh Penguins are acquiring forward Mikael Granlund from the Nashville Predators. According to Friedman, the return is expected to be a second round pick.

Update: it’s official

Granlund is under contract for this season and two more at a $5.0 million cap hit. He just turned 31-years old last week and has flexibility to play center or the wing. He has decent enough wheels and good play-making ability, having exceeded the 60-point mark in the NHL three times in his career, including just last year.

But the advanced stats? Well the advanced stats do not like him very much at all.

Defensively, Granlund isn’t going to help out much, and it will be odd to see where the Penguins look to place him within their lineup. If he is to be on their third line.

In order to fit Granlund’s contract, the Pens traded Teddy Blueger today and also re-assigned Brock McGinn and Mark Friedman to the AHL. It is believed but not official yet that Drake Caggiula is en route to join the NHL Penguins as a call up.

While being received generally negatively for an initial reaction online (what else is new?), we did spotlight Granlund just yesterday on PensBurgh as a name to keep an eye at around the deadline.

And here’s how the Daily Faceoff describes him:

Granlund hails from Finland, but he might as well be from Switzerland because he is the perfect Swiss Army Knife for any contending team. He impacts the game in so many different ways. He skates well, he produces offense at even-strength, he can play on the power play and penalty kill. Granlund is also a tireless worker and gets in on the forecheck well. All of those things, and with some term and a salary cap hit that is in line with his production, and that makes him a very sought after commodity on the trade market as the Predators begin to tear it down.

That said, some other data flies in the face of the more glowing reports, does that make anyone feel better at a time like this? Not sure, but let’s take the temperature!