Trading Up? The Cost of a Penguins Draft Day Trade

The 2025 NHL Draft is June 27 and 28, and the Pittsburgh Penguins have the 11th overall pick. Probably.

Through their January trade with the Vancouver Canucks, the Penguins also have claim to the New York Rangers first-round pick in 2025 or 2026, but the odd quirk is the Rangers do not have to make the decision on which pick the Penguins get until June 25. While the Rangers dumped Chris Kreider on the Anaheim Ducks last week, the NHL trade rumors persist that defenseman K’Andre Miller is also on his way out, and so, too, could Mika Zibanejad have a new address by next season.

The short story of the Rangers’ offseason is upheaval and change, which only deepens the intrigue of their decision. Should they cough up the 2025 pick to Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas, it will be the 12th overall pick.

Trading up in the draft is rare, but it does happen. The Penguins traded northward with the Florida Panthers in 2003, from third overall to first, so that they could select Marc-Andre Fleury, and Florida was happy to select power forward Nathan Horton (Carolina Hurricanes selected Eric Staal at No. 2).

The Penguins also traded down in 2018, getting Ryan Reaves and the St. Louis Blues’ second-round pick while parting with Oscar Sundqvist and their first-round pick. Former Penguins GM Jim Rutherford selected defenseman Zachary Lauzon, who sadly was forced to retire during his junior hockey career with concussion issues.

Having two picks or just one would surely change Dubas’s calculus regarding draft day maneuvering. Would he keep the 11th and 12th overall picks or try to jump higher in the draft?

The 2025 NHL Draft has an elite class of five, maybe six prospects. Then a drop off after 12. However, the centers are the prime targets of the top 10 and the Penguins at 11 could watch their favored selection plucked from their midst, as it was in 2023 when the Buffalo Sabres too Zach Benson one spot before the Penguins, who then drafted Brayden Yager at No. 14 (and traded Yager last summer to the Winnipeg Jets for Rutger McGroarty).

What would a 2025 Draft Day trade-up look like?

Matt Perri, former Director of Analytics for the Arizona Coyotes, helped PuckPedia.com create the Perri Trade Calculator, which assigns a point value to draft picks. It’s the type of tools analytics departments across the NHL use to supply their GMs with valuable insights and valuations.

So, if you think the Penguins can package a first and second rounder to jump higher in the draft, you’re probably wrong unless it’s one or two spots.

The Perri Calculator values the Penguins’ 11th overall pick at 31.99 points. A second-rounder is worth a whopping 5.71 points. So, it basically might be able to flip the Penguins forward by a couple of spots, if GMs are going by paper.

However, given the heavily tiered nature of the 2025 draft class, rival GMs will be far less willing to give up their place in line for a mere late second-rounder (the Penguins have the Washington Capitals’ second-round pick, but not their own due to the 2023 Erik Karlsson trade).

Would Buffalo at No. 9 take a second rounder to allow the Penguins to select Brady Martin or Roger McQueen, and perhaps settle for Cole Reschny or Kashawn Aitcheson? That’s a big difference in prospect projections, and though it’s just two spots, it typifies how important this year’s draft slots will be.

Let’s tug on the trade rumors that Dubas could take a big swing and leap forward into the top five at the draft to get his hands on Porter Martone.

Not that Josh needs my amplification, but I saw his story about Porter Martone today. I also saw the interaction between Martone and Dubas. It was like buddies. Needless to say, it was much different than Radim Mrtka, who didn’t know which one was Dubas.

— Dan Kingerski (@TheDanKingerski) June 11, 2025

It was true and quite humorous that Mrtka didn’t know Dubas until I showed him a picture and we all laughed, but Martone made a point to seek out Dubas at the NHL Scouting Combine last week. The two had a quick back-and-forth in the hotel lobby as we chatted with Dubas.

The Utah Mammoth are, no pun intended though enjoyed, big game hunting. Utah has a stack of cash and salary cap space as large as the snowcapped Wasatch Mountains, which surround the city. Indeed, after a hastily prepared inaugural season, the formerly hapless Arizona Coyotes now have money, interest, and badly want to improve.

According to the Perri Calculator, Utah’s fourth overall pick is worth 55.24 points. That’s a big gap from the Penguins’ 31.99 valuation. However, if the Rangers sacrifice their 2025 pick to the Penguins, suddenly both the 11th and 12th picks are worth about 60 points on the calculator.

Hmmm?

Would Dubas part with a pair of first-rounders to increase the quality, and would Utah or even the Nashville Predators, who own the fifth overall pick, see the value in quantity over quality with two picks?

Of course, the Penguins should still be concerned with quantity, too. They are still prospect-starved, especially as McGroarty, Ville Koivunen, Owen Pickering, and Tristan Broz reach the NHL next season. There isn’t yet a second wave of youngins to take their place with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and begin their hockey matriculation. Would such a move benefit the Penguins, or would crossing their fingers tightly to hope one of Martin or McQueen falls to them be the proper route?

If the Rangers do not surrender their 2025 pick, perhaps Rickard Rakell is the solution, offering the Penguins another chip to spend in order to jump to the top five? Such a move would benefit the Penguins’ prospect pool and future far more than proffering a pair of firsts. But would it be enough trade value for the teams currently residing in the top five?

That’s a difficult question, as even this writer is re-adjusting Rakell’s trade value based on the market. Where once we thought it to be a two or three-asset price tag, including a high pick, it now seems that it is a significant overvaluation.

For a reference point, the Boston Bruins’ seventh overall pick is worth 42.44 points, which still outpaces the Penguins’ first and second round picks.

It seems difficult, if not entirely unlikely, that Dubas will be able to leap high enough to snag Martone. However, jumping forward a few spots higher if they feel more strongly about one of the second-tier centers (Read More: The Penguins Draft, Three Centers to Hope For) in the draft is doable–at the expense of depth and only with a willing partner.