According to many, Day One of free agency has been a bit of letdown.
Many of the biggest names on the market - names such as Mitch Marner, Brock Boeser, Brad Marchand, and K’Andre Miller (RFA) - have either been re-signed by their current teams (Boeser and Marchand) or were packaged as part of trade-then-sign deals (Marner and Miller). In other words - unless your name is Nikolaj Ehlers - there are very few big-name free agents left on the market.
So now that contending teams are running out of options? Well, that’s where the Pittsburgh Penguins come in.
Pittsburgh has a few “backup” options - if they should even be called that - for teams that need help in their push for contention. Wingers Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell - as well as defenseman Erik Karlsson - have all generated interest on the trade market, and Penguins’ general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas has even said as much.
And there is perhaps no trade target more interesting to teams than Rust right now.
Rust, 33, is fresh off of a career year, when he registered 31 goals and 65 points in 71 games. His contract comes in at a very team-friendly cap hit of $5.125 million for three more years, which - when put up against player comparables like Boeser at $7.25 million for seven years - looks like a bargain. And, his veteran leadership and clutch gene make him a valuable locker room presence, too.
Pittsburgh quite likes Rust for all of the aforementioned reasons, and they are also a team that - as Dubas has reiterated time and time again - is trying to compete again “as urgently as possible.” For the Penguins, there is value in keeping Rust, even beyond nostalgia.
And Dubas was very clear on what type of offer would need to be made in order for Rust to be dealt.
“Unless it’s something that blows us away in terms of what it returns - that it can very easily be looked at to help us return to contention - that would be a tough one,” Dubas said Monday of a potential Rust deal. “But, we’ve got lots of calls on him, he’s a great player, he’s signed… but he’s also a massive member of the Penguins. So, we’ll continue to be open for business, but the price will be very high.”
So, if a desperate team comes knocking, they better be prepared to pay a steep price - and likely an overpay.
And, as of Jul 1, there are three teams - the Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Edmonton Oilers - who are rumored to be interested in Rust, with several likely to follow once they miss out on free agent targets.
What kind of haul - operating from the perspective of Dubas and the Penguins - should be expected from each of these three teams in any potential Rust trade?
Buffalo Sabres
To Buffalo: RW Bryan Rust
To Pittsburgh: RW Isak Rosen, 2026 first-round pick, 2027 third-round pick
First thing’s first: Let’s just assume that a first-round pick is, likely, a starting point in terms of asking price for Rust. The same can be said about Rakell, who has similar value but isn’t quite as multidimensional as Rust.
Is a first-round pick and one of the Sabres’ top prospects an overpay? Absolutely. But, it’s likely the only type of “blow us away” offer that Dubas would accept in exchange.
Rosen, 22, is a top-nine scoring winger with hands like butter and a devastating release. He is - in some ways - a younger version of Rakell in terms of craftiness and his ability to evade defenders to set himself up for scoring opportunities.
Although he has just one point in 15 total NHL games, he put together consecutive seasons of 20-plus goals with the Rochester Americans of the AHL, including 28 goals and 55 points in 61 games last season. He is the exact kind of young player the Penguins would be looking for in a trade, and - for Rust - they won’t accept anything less.
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Columbus Blue Jackets
To Columbus: RW Bryan Rust
To Pittsburgh: RW Yegor Chinakhov, LD Stanislav Svozil, 2027 first-round pick
In this scenario, Pittsburgh still fetches that first-round pick - albeit a year later - but instead of receiving one top-three prospect, they get a young, high-upside NHL player and a B-level prospect in return.
Chinakhov, 24, spent much of the season on Columbus’s second line - that is, when healthy. A back injury kept him out for much of last season, limiting him to 30 games in which he registered seven goals and 15 points. He will be an RFA in 2026, Columbus has plenty of forward talent in their system, and they’re trying to improve this summer.
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His injury history is questionable at best - he’s never played in more than 62 games across his four NHL seasons - and that comes with risk. But it might make him expendable enough to the Jackets and intriguing enough for Pittsburgh to take a chance on him. He is a high-IQ player with great vision, which seems to be the type of young player Dubas has been targeting.
Pittsburgh is also in heavy need of left defensive help, and - although Svosil isn’t an A-grade defensive prospect - it’s never a bad idea to have an abundance of defensive depth. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked the 22-year-old, 6-foot blueliner as Columbus’s sixth-best prospect, and he racked up 11 goals and 78 points in 56 points playing with Connor Bedard for the Regina Pats (WHL) in 2022-23.
He is raw, and he has worked on qualming the risk in his game. But he has the potential to be an effective NHL defenseman on the left side, something the Penguins surely need.
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Edmonton Oilers
To Edmonton: RW Bryan Rust, 2026 fourth-round pick
To Pittsburgh: C Matt Savoie, 2027 first-round pick
The Oilers have one of the worst prospect pools in the league, so when it was reported by Darren Dreger on Tuesday that Bryan Rust’s name has been “attached to the Oilers at least in media speculation,” the immediate response by many was that the Oilers had nothing of interest to offer the Penguins.
That is, except for Savoie.
Let’s be clear: In order to get an “overpay” here, a first-round pick would still have to be part of the equation, even if the Penguins target Edmonton’s top prospect. Savoie - while intriguing - is not nearly as coveted as the top prospects in other systems, and he is undersized at 5-foot-9.
He registered 19 goals and 54 points in 66 AHL games with the Bakersfield Condors last season, which was his first in professional hockey. He’s a great skater, he’s deceptive, and he’s got a shot that should play at the NHL level.
The Oilers are in win-now mode, especially with Connor McDavid in the last year of his current contract. Rust will help them toward that goal, and they will have to pay a premium to get him.
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Feature image credit: Charles LeClaire - Imagn Images
