How Penguins’ Journeymen Responded to Trades, Opportunity

The Pittsburgh Penguins have traded their salary cap stash for draft picks. Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas used $6 million of the cap surplus to acquire a pair of third-round picks and a 2026 second-rounder, but in the process also acquired Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass.

Neither of them fit with their previous team, who paid the Penguins to accept them.

Dubas also signed winger Anthony Beauvillier to a one-year, $1.25 million contract on July 1. Last season, Beauvillier was unable to buy green bananas as he was traded twice. He split his season with three teams but did not play more than 23 games with any of them.

The Penguins have some vagabond shoes who are longing to stay.

“Obviously (last season) was not an easy season for me, especially mentally. Yeah, it was tough just getting used to different systems, getting used to different dressing rooms and different guys,” said Beauvillier via Zoom call with Pittsburgh media, including Pittsburgh Hockey Now on August 1. “Just getting to know the cities and getting comfortable everywhere, it wasn’t easy. But I feel like I learned a lot last season just to get comfortable with different groups, and (I’m) looking for more stability now. And I feel like joining the Penguins is going to be good for me.”

Beauvillier’s speed could make him a good fit for the Penguins lineup, but he’ll be competing with a bevy of bottom-six talent for a roster spot. The 27-year-old finished last season with five goals and 12 assists in 60 games played.

Hayes, 32, is with his fifth team and third team in three seasons. In June 2019, he signed a very healthy seven-year deal with the Philadelphia Flyers that carries a more than $7.1 million annual cap hit. The deal was shocking even then, but it became a contract Philadelphia wanted to shed and picked up 50% in a trade with St. Louis, who then traded a 2026 second-rounder and 2025 third-round pick (belonging to Ottawa) to the Penguins with Hayes.

“Two years ago in Philly, we had a great start to the season. I was an All-Star. And then the end of the season didn’t really go as well,” Hayes said via Zoom call with media on July 23. “I felt like last year I couldn’t really find a role in St. Louis and didn’t play my best hockey. So, (I’m) eager to get the season started, to kind of show that I can still play in this league and be part of a winning team.”

Hayes said he wants to adopt a shooter’s mentality this season, which might greatly help a team that has struggled to produce adequate offensive production from its bottom six.

“I’ve had successful seasons. I know what I need to do to make sure my game works in this league, and I think I’ll have a good opportunity in Pittsburgh to do that,” Hayes said. “I think instead of it being an ego shot, I’ll use it more as motivation to show those two teams that I can still play and produce in this league.”

Glass, 24, is the youngest of the trio but has been climbing a rocky road to becoming an NHL regular. He was the Vegas Golden Knights‘ first-ever draft pick. They selected him sixth overall in the 2017 NHL Draft, and he was supposed to be the first home-grown Golden Knights star, but the opportunity fizzled. He played in 66 games split over two seasons (2019-20, 2020-21) before he was involved in an entirely unusual three-team trade.

Philadelphia traded former second-overall pick Nolan Patrick, who was beset by injuries and ineffectiveness, to Vegas, who traded Glass to Nashville Predators, who traded the essentially retired, permanently long-term injured reserve (LTIR) defenseman Ryan Ellis to Philadelphia.

Vegas gave up Glass for a longshot to revive Patrick’s career. Patrick retired after playing just 25 games with Vegas due to persistent migraines and concussion issues.

For his part, Glass responded with surprising totals during his first campaign with Nashville, scoring 14 goals and 35 points in 72 games. Following the season, he earned a two-year, $5 million deal, but injuries and a newly stacked Nashville lineup made him expendable after the first year of the contract.

How he’ll respond to a new opportunity with the Penguins or whether he makes the NHL roster will be decided over the next month. He’s not yet been made available to the Pittsburgh media, but training camp begins in just a few weeks.

Not many would have predicted, guessed, and certainly not demanded Dubas’s parallel rebuild begin with reclamation projects on unwanted salaries. Still, he’s begun to replenish some of the many assets traded away for years while the organization pursued a fourth Stanley Cup for the core three (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang).

Now, a few players will get new chances to put down roots, even if they have only one or two years to do so. However, the cold reality of the Penguins’ rebuild and the cold reality of NHL business is that each will quite possibly be on a new team within the next season or two.