From locally to some National publications the Penguins are getting crushed for what they got back for Jake Guentzel. Penguins GM Kyle Dubas on Friday was aware of all the noise and the frustration from even his own roster for deciding to punt on the season in moving Guentzel and not improving the roster over the last four to six weeks.

“I don’t expect people to agree with it,” said Dubas of moving Guentzel. “He’s a very popular player in the room in the community. “I think in this position you have to make these decisions knowing that they’re not going to be popular to anybody and that’s part of the job. It can be lonely, and lot of people can be upset at you a lot as you go along. But you still have to make the decision that you think are best for the group, regardless how they’re perceived and do what’s right for the Penguins.”

Despite what was being spun during a few Dubas media sessions in past months, the Penguins internally made a decision around Christmas they were 100% going to move Guentzel to recoup assets whether they were going to be in the playoff race or not. The Guentzel camp was aware of this decision dating back to even early January. All parties involved knew this day was coming.

Dubas is getting blasted from a number of angles for going quantity over quality. He was ready to attack this talk in saying “If you look at the history there’s not a lot of teams that are willing to expend particularly what they view as their top prospects,” Dubas said. “Making trades of that nature, if you’re going to acquire some of these what they would rate as their own No. 1 or No. 2 prospects, those generally come with players with longer term on their deals, not rentals.”

What made the Hurricanes offer more enticing to the Penguins than others where they felt it checked all the boxes for the present and future. For the immediate roster, Pittsburgh feels they came out of this with two players who will immediately help the roster in Michael Bunting to offset the pain a little of losing Jake Guentzel and Vasily Ponomarev who will start in Wilkes Barre but will be up with the team in a couple weeks and projects to be a regular on the roster next season. Pittsburgh likes Ponomarev ability/upside as a useful bottom-6 contributor for now/future and the Hurricanes were said to not have been thrilled to lose Ponomarev.

On Bunting there’s a feeling in the organization his addition is a start to the organization looking to identify a different style of top-9 forwards. Time will tell on that one but some excitement he’s going to bring a different edge to the table and net-front presence on the power play.

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Penguins Strongly Feel Koivunen checked key box of landing high-level prospect

The X-Factor in the Guentzel return is 20 year old forward Ville Koivunen who in the Penguins eyes is what significantly trumped the Hurricanes offer over others.

“We stacked it up against all the offers that were there and decided it was by far the best,” said Dubas of the Hurricanes offer.

For analysts, draft pundits saying the team didn’t land a high-level prospect in the Guentzel deal, the Penguins will strongly disagree with that sentiment. They see the high scoring forward in a different light and as mentioned here Friday morning, Penguin scouts are ecstatic at the team adding Koivunen and the organization feels Koivunen is very close to being NHL-ready.

“I understand (that sentiment) if perhaps he’s not as common over here, he doesn’t play in North America,” Dubas said of Koivunen.

“Koivunen was one of the players that we had targeted just in our evaluations and our internal way that we go through our scouting process and our process of evaluating guys. What also excites the Penguins is they feel Koivunen is very close to being NHL-ready and could become a third player from this trade to make the roster next season. “He’s had an excellent year,” said Dubas. He was a guy that when we got to the 2021 draft when I was in Toronto, we had highly touted in our process year going through this. Was one of their players we had targeted very highly, and he’s had a great year with Karpat. He’s just gotten better and better as the years gone on. He makes such a high impact, highly competitive and highly skilled, which seems to be in the mix that fits here best.”

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MORE BUZZ

Post-Deadline Chatter: Hearing a team or two called in the lead-up to Friday but Penguins never received an offer on Lars Eller who for now the team believes can still help them next season. Market never evolved for him……..There’s disappointment Penguins did not move To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! From a cap flexibility standpoint, one team source says adding Michael Bunting will look a lot better when Smith is moved this summer. Prior to Friday things got close with Los Angeles but Pittsburgh made decision not to retain any money [hide] on Smith which saw talks break down. Sounds like Pittsburgh/LA might have also talked something bigger. Pittsburgh made internal decision to take things to the summer in a belief they can move Smith without retaining in a few months……Teams are already wondering if defenseman Marcus [hide] Pettersson will be Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel on the trade market next season……The Philadelphia Flyers seeking a veteran presence at the deadline looked into Jeff To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!