Not every trade or roster move needs to be a franchise-altering move to also be considered a smart move.
Tuesday’s Kaedan Korczak for Parker Wotherspoon trade is a good example of that for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It is not something you are likely to look back on and say, “that is a major turning point for the franchise.” But it is something that makes a great deal of sense, and I’m a little surprised at the mass confusion (and even some criticism) that it has received.
Wotherspoon ended up being an
excellent signing for the Penguins, and one that worked out significantly better than anybody could have hoped for a year ago when it was completed. Wotherspoon shockingly filled out the left-side role on the top-pairing next to Erik Karlsson, was a strong complement to him, and had by far the best season of his career.
And now the Penguins trade him?
Well.
Yeah.
And I completely get it.
For as strong as Wotherspoon played and worked out during the 2025-26 season in his role, there are a few important factors to keep in mind.
- He is entering the final year of his contract and, given the ballooning rate of mid-level and lower-level NHL player contracts under the rising salary cap, his number was about to rise. Dramatically.
- Would that have been a smart investment for the Penguins? He is going to be 30 years old when that next contract kicks in, and has really only excelled at the NHL level while playing alongside a future Hall of Famer in Karlsson for one season. If you want the Penguins to get younger, giving a 30-year-old defenseman that has a limited track record of NHL success a big-money deal is not going to accomplish that.
- Prior to joining the Penguins he had 16 points in 108 games and was mostly an organizational depth defenseman. His numbers and contributions away from Karlsson, even this past season, kind of matched that level of play.
- What Wotherspoon did have going for him initially was that despite the lack of production and games played, he had mostly posted strong underlying numbers in smaller roles that he typically won.
The latter point is key for Korczak, because he is basically in the same situation coming from Vegas. He is a younger version of what Wotherspoon initially was for the Penguins.
From an underlying numbers perspective, Korczak has been wildly effective in his smaller, depth roles.
- Over the past three seasons the Golden Knights outscored teams by a 102-68 margin when Korczak was on the ice during 5-on-5 play. That was the best 5-on-5 goal-differential among Vegas defensemen, and fourth-best among 295 defensemen that logged at least 500 minutes.
- His 54.51 expected goal share was fourth-best among Vegas defenders over that time and 19th among the aforementioned 295 defenders across the league.
- His 2.12 expected goals against (and 1.88 actual goals against) per 60 minutes were tops on Vegas. That expected goals against number was third-best in the NHL while the 1.88 actual goals against were ninth-best.
This isn’t to say that Korczak is one of the best defensemen in the league, or that he was even Vegas’ best defenseman. That’s not the point here. The point is he was given a specific role, even in sheltered minutes, and performed exceptionally well in that role. He’s probably earned a bigger opportunity and a bigger role to see what he does with it. Maybe he gets better and handles it well. Maybe he doesn’t and he remains as a highly effective depth defenseman. Either way, it’s a younger player onto the roster.
He is also four years younger than Wotherspoon and already signed long-term with some cost-certainty on what should be a favorable contract with a $3.25 million salary cap number. When you see what bottom-pairing defensemen are going to start going for, it’s going to look even better. Especially as the salary cap skyrockets in the coming seasons. A $3.25 million cap hit on a $104 million cap is the equivalent of a $2.95 million cap hit under the 2025-26 cap of $95.5 million. When the cap rises up to $113 million in 2027-28 it will be the equivalent of a $2.6 million cap number.
The Penguins needed to find a defense version of Egor Chinakhov. They needed to find some younger legs, especially on their back-end where most of their 2025-26 roster was either on the wrong side of 30, or rapidly approach it. This is a nice swing at that. And even if Korczak doesn’t blossom the same way here, it’s still a nice brick to have at the bottom of your lineup that you know can fill a specific role.
Kyle Dubas made mention after the draft of this potentially being a more methodical brick-by-brick process.
This is a brick.
It’s a smart brick with a little bit of upside at a fair cost.
I’m also not overly concerned about the left spot on the top-pairing on July 1, because a year ago at this time we also had no idea who the left spot on the top-pairing would be. If you had proposed it being Wotherspoon, even after he was signed, you probably would have been laughed at. There is a lot of time to fill that spot, and as long as Karlsson is on the roster I am confident the Hall of Famer will make it work. Just as he did with Wotherspoon.
