2023-24 Trade Bait: Jake Guentzel
Right place, right time
After three Stanley Cups and nearly two decades together, it appears the Pittsburgh Penguins’ nucleus of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang can no longer power a credible title chase. It may finally be time for the organization to look toward the future.
As luck would have it, new general manager Kyle Dubas can kick-start that process because he holds one of the more enticing chips on the trade table: Jake Guentzel (50 points in 47 games).
Here’s why the pending UFA would fetch the Pens a sizable return.
Transition
While Crosby’s remarkable age-36 season has stolen the headlines, his 29-year-old partner in crime deserves some credit for facilitating his performance. Guentzel’s cleverness and vision in the NZ have been vital to the first unit’s possession game.
Don’t let his ordinary top speed (73rd percentile among forwards) fool you. Despite not looking the part of a puck-carrying maven, he helps Pittsburgh plant its flag in the OZ through spacing, anticipation and interplay. It’s no coincidence that the Pens connect the dots much more easily when he’s around.
Guentzel (PIT 59) just understands how to find daylight within the rush-hour congestion:
There’s great variety to the winger’s approach in transition. He can offer reliable puck support in order for Pittsburgh to exit the DZ as a tight-knit group, but he also runs savvy deep routes and completes nifty lateral passes when necessary. Better yet, he never doubles up on lanes, affording each target the room to breathe and become viable in due course.
A five-man outfit can only cover so much ground—and Guentzel drives home this reality by utilizing the full ice surface, stretching defenses not with blazing long speed but calculated verticality and width.
Thanks to that tendency, he routinely strengthens his team’s shape and puts momentum behind the puck. The Pens can thus attack with pace, back off the opposition’s blockade and earn an additional 4-5 feet of real estate with which to establish their offensive setup.
With so many variables in the mix, many breakouts will go sideways all the same. Fortunately, Guentzel’s feel for the flow of traffic enables him to make off-schedule plays too:
After Ryan Graves’ (PIT 27) breakout pass is batted down, Guentzel channels his inner wide receiver and meets the puck instead of waiting for it to reach his blade. He then peeks over his right shoulder to gather his bearings, lets Anton Lundell (FLA 15) vacate the lane and hits Erik Karlsson (PIT 65) up the far boards.
Count the Panthers players on Guentzel’s side of the rink. Florida doesn’t expect a cross-ice play to emerge from the fuddle, so his accuracy grants the reigning Norris Trophy winner acres of weak-side ice to play with. What was destined for a pile-up becomes smooth sailing.
The winger’s efforts have salvaged breakouts that stumbled out of the blocks and rolled out the red carpet for Pittsburgh all year long. His underlying numbers reflect that aptitude:
In a nutshell, Guentzel’s NZ displays generate plus touches for his teammates. And when top-tier players (e.g. Crosby) have the puck in the OZ, that usually translates to high offensive output.
Close-Range Offense
The OZ’s runway isn’t quite as broad, yet Guentzel’s punctuality becomes even more apparent on the attack. Over the past 5-6 seasons, he’s fine-tuned his habit of popping up precisely when and where his teammates need him.
More often than not, this manifests itself in trigger-man or net-front spacing. When he opts for the former, he lurks in the shadows, striking only once the chess pieces have fallen into place. He’s equally patient on his shooting platform, tweaking his angle or coasting instead of zooming through—and thereby shutting—the slot seam in question.
Guentzel’s impact crests near the goalmouth, though. At 5’11” and 180 pounds, he’s managed to turn his slender build into an asset, sneaking through the slimmest of gaps to gain inside leverage. It’s almost like defenders don’t notice him in the eye of the storm. From there, his nose for the puck seizes control:
You can tell this isn’t his first rodeo. He senses how long he can maintain the upper hand against larger opponents and will reset on the perimeter when his internal clock expires. He also gets his hips around him in tight so he’s always primed to fire. You’ll rarely see him caught off guard by a pass.
Whether it’s a high/low tip (2nd in the league in deflections), a bank off to the side or a rebound, he’s as prolific as they come in the deep slot:
Somehow, this average and undersized skater is continually available in the most valuable areas of the ice. He does so by concealing himself and his intentions until the point of attack arrives at his doorstep.
If the Pens boast a numbers advantage, he’ll race to the back post. If the design calls for a slower crawl, he’ll withdraw from the action for a moment and synchronize his entry with the passing window’s ripeness. As a net-front weapon, he aims to free up his stick in time for the incoming point shot. When defenders prioritize someone else, he’ll swivel to open up his posture for a tap-in.
Rather than sitting on his hands, he’s incessantly toiling to give his teammates something to work with:
He begins this odd-man rush by showing Crosby (PIT 87) a far-post, on-wing target, but Pittsburgh’s captain opts for the link-up in the heart of the OZ. Rather than viewing a slot wrister as a foregone conclusion, Guentzel cuts across the goaltender’s face and stops at the net to present Drew O’Connor (PIT 10) with a higher-danger alternative.
His smarts and activity convert good shots into great ones. Granted, the NHL’s tracking data indicates that Guentzel isn’t a clinical finisher (72nd percentile). The sheer volume of opportunities he’s involved in nevertheless creates mayhem down low, second chances for his teammates, etc.
Guentzel, Crosby and Bryan Rust, who’ve suited up together for the majority of the season, have generated the second-highest expected goal rate and the highest actual goal rate of any trio in the league.
At 5-on-5, his line has never seemed so threatening:
2023-24 has been an excellent showcase for his offensive punch, and much like his presence in the OZ, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Guentzel’s gifts fly under the radar. They’re difficult to quantify too. In the absence of sizzle, however, is a ton of substance. This is a player whose IQ puts him and his team in position to succeed nightly.
This year’s contenders would be wise to consider paying for his services.