The Pittsburgh Penguins have acquired forward Jeff Carter from the Los Angeles Kings prior to Monday’s trade deadline. The 16-year veteran will join his fourth franchise since joining the NHL. Bob McKenzie reported the preliminary move late Sunday night. LA will retain salary in exchange for several conditional draft picks.
Could veteran centre Jeff Carter be on his way to PIT? LAK and PIT have had discussions on that and are believed to be working towards making that happen.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) April 12, 2021
Penguins Acquire Jeff Carter
The 36-year-old Carter is having a mild uptick in his production in 2020-21. The raw scoring is down at eight goals and 19 in 40 games, but the scoring rate is .48 points per game. That is a slight improvement from both 2018-19 and 2019-20. He also remains a strong possession player with a 50.1 Corsi For and 1.9 relative Corsi. It’s impressive to see such strong energy from someone in the latter part of their career.
The Philadelphia Flyers originally drafted Carter in the first round of the 2003 Draft and helped develop him into a quality skater. He regularly posted 60 or more points multiple times between 2008-09 and 2016-17 while receiving consideration for numerous awards. He was also a huge part of LA’s Stanley Cup championships in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Overall, Carter has 390 goals and 751 points in 1080 games. That is good enough to place Carter eighth in scoring from his draft class between Thomas Vanek and Brent Burns.
What This Means For The Future
This trade should help Pittsburgh as it pushes for one more Stanley Cup in the Sidney Crosby era. Carter is not what he once was, but the Pens don’t need him to be. He can be a fine scoring option on the middle-six and contribute to the second power-play unit.
It is unfortunate that Kings fans must say goodbye to one of their franchise icons, but the picks will help them continue their rebuild. LA already has one of the most exciting young cores in hockey and the selections, once made official, will reinforce that pool of talent further.
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