Penguins Trade Talk & Analysis: ‘Shoppers’ for O’Connor, Interest in Hoglander

The Pittsburgh Penguins trade chatter is circling on two players.

The team has already executed a pair of trades since acquiring Kevin Hayes at the NHL Draft in June but has only dealt with one team. General Manager Kyle Dubas accepted Cody Glass with an attached third-round pick, allowing the Nashville Predators to shed Glass’s salary, and Dubas paid the paltry sum of the 2027 fourth-rounder acquired for Chad Ruhwedel at the 2024 NHL trade deadline to acquire struggling 2019 first-round pick Philip Tomasino from Nashville on Nov. 25.

According to Elliotte Friedman in the latest 32 Thoughts column, Dubas has his eyes on another struggling young player and is receiving interest in another.

“I think Pittsburgh has a real interest in Nils Hoglander. Meanwhile, the Penguins have shoppers for Drew O’Connor,” Friedman wrote as item No. 18.

The Penguins’ interest in Hoglander isn’t news. Word has been bubbling for a few weeks. However, after a breakout 2023-24 campaign in which he scored 24 goals with 36 points in 80 games with a plus-23 rating, the LW’s offensive output has gone dry this season.

Hoglander, 23, has only five points (2-3-5) in 24 games and is a minus-5. Further complicating a deal for the 5-foot-9, 180-pound winger is his contract extension. Beginning next season, Hoglander will be on a three-year, $9 million deal.

Possible Cost for Hoglander

Cost for the Penguins? No, that’s the wrong phrase. It is GM Patrik Allvin who will have a cost to move Hoglander, and the Penguins will be able to acquire more draft picks if they accept the winger.

Glass cost Nashville a third-round pick to move his $2.5 million salary, and Kevin Hayes cost the St. Louis Blues a second-round pick to move his $3.5 million (for two years) salary cap hit. Dubas later recouped a 2026 second and a 2025 third-rounder (Ottawa’s) from St. Louis because St. Louis needed to re-acquire their second-round pick to extend an offer sheet to Philip Broberg.

Hoglander’s impending extension is significant, but the Penguins can afford it. Surely, Allvin and Vancouver president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford would like to sell high, touting 24 goals, but Hoglander has never been a big goal scorer. He split 2022-23 between the NHL and AHL, playing just 25 NHL games with nine points (3-6-9).

Analysis

For several reasons, we’re dubious about the fit and that Vancouver will be willing to pay the price right now. It would benefit Vancouver to wait to see if coach Rick Tocchet can get the best from Hoglander again rather than cutting bait and spending assets to move on before the extension even kicks in.

The scouting reports on Hoglander are a high-risk playmaker who lacks size and strength but makes up for his deficiencies with energy. One might posit the Penguins have already acquired a similar player in Philip Tomasino. Further, it’s hard to see how Hoglander would fit with coach Mike Sullivan’s style–pushing the Penguins to be a small area team that is good down low. The Penguins require a certain competence in the dirty areas because they’re no longer a team that excels on the rush.

Drew O’Connor

Sullivan has long seen O’Connor as a possible power forward and kept him from his natural position in the middle. That debate will rage another time in another column.

O’Connor, 26, is 6-foot-4, 209 pounds, and is a well-above-average skater. In some areas, he’s like the next generation of Carl Hagelin, the speedy winger who helped the Penguins to the 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cups. Hagelin couldn’t score before January, either. O’Connor has 15 goals in 123 career games before the All-Star break and 12 goals in 61 career games after.

This season, he has three goals and nine points in 27 games, but his minus-13 rating mirrors the team’s season-long aversion to defense.

O’Connor’s goal drought this season is starting to reach concerning levels. He hasn’t scored since the sixth game, a span of 21 games. However, he did generate significant offense for the team during a several-game stretch in which he centered a line with Jesse Puljujarvi and Sam Poulin before Tomasino’s acquisition relegated Puljujarvi to the press box as a healthy scratch and Poulin back to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL.

It’s easy to see O’Connor’s trade value to another team. He can slot as a winger or center, kill penalties, or play on a second power-play unit. It’s also not hard to fathom that another team could value the productive center that he could be.

It’s also a questionable move to part with a 26-year-old while in the midst of a youth movement.

O’Connor will be an unrestricted free agent after this season and will likely command a few million per season for several years. His trade value is difficult to assess because of his versatility but lack of consistent production. The beauty will be in the eye of the behold, but a mere second-round pick would seem like a mistake from this view.