Mark Madden: Jason Zucker is valuable asset, but the Penguins could get solid return in trade

The NHL trade deadline is a little over a week away (it’s April 12), and it looks like it will be difficult for Penguins GM Ron Hextall to make an impactful deal. Hextall just doesn’t have much trade capital that might bring meaningful return.

That’s unless Hextall shops left winger Jason Zucker.

Zucker was acquired at a heavy price Feb. 10 of last year. The Penguins’ first-round pick in the 2020 draft and top defensive prospect Calen Addison went to Minnesota.

Zucker has been vanilla in Pittsburgh. Decent but no better. He has 11 goals and nine assists in 34 games as a Penguin. He returned to the lineup Monday after being injured for a month.

Zucker has skill, speed and energy. But he doesn’t seem a fit for Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, perhaps because he has the puck a lot. The most helpful use of Zucker might be to anchor a third line, like Phil Kessel in 2016. Try to recreate that HBK vibe.

Or perhaps Zucker would best serve the Penguins by being traded.

Zucker might bring good return, but maybe not the equivalent of what the Penguins gave Minnesota. He’d certainly fetch more than anyone else Hextall might readily dangle.

Zucker has never truly established himself in Pittsburgh, so he wouldn’t be much missed. He wouldn’t leave a gaping hole in the lineup.

Jake Guentzel is established on Crosby’s left wing. Jared McCann has shown flashes on Malkin’s left. Zach Aston-Reese is fine as the third-line left wing, usually skating with Teddy Blueger and Brandon Tanev. Aston-Reese netted his career-best eighth goal in Thursday’s 4-1 win at Boston.

When healthy, the Penguins have three good lines without Zucker (who also scored Thursday).

Memo to Penguins: Forget the idea of Aston-Reese, Blueger and Tanev being the fourth line in the vein of the New York Islanders’ line of Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin. If a line plays more than any other line, it isn’t the fourth line. That’s the case with both of those lines.

If your third line is worse than your fourth line, the third line is your fourth line and vice versa. It’s a matter of minutes and quality, not style and labels.

The return for Zucker would likely upgrade the bottom six. That’s besides making the Penguins bigger and tougher, a definite goal of Hextall and Brian Burke, the team’s president of hockey operations. Any swap made figures to serve that end.

This isn’t trying to run Zucker out of town. But to get, you’ve got to give. Zucker is a valuable asset but one the Penguins can afford to part with. He’s a good player who’s signed through 2023 with a reasonable (not great) cap hit of $5.5 million.

It’s a risk thinking McCann can be a top-six wing, though he has three goals and three assists in his last five games and had a solid March with five goals and five assists in 10 games. McCann gets pucks on net and goes to the net. The latter seems to mesh with Malkin.

But McCann also ended last season with a 25-game goalless streak and was a healthy scratch for a playoff game.

Hextall can’t improve the Penguins without risk. There’s little precious future left to sacrifice in terms of prospects. Trading those or draft picks seems ill-advised.

Hextall seems likely to deal from the NHL roster. Zucker is a movable piece, more marketable than, say, McCann, or any of those composing the glut on the left side of the Penguins defense save Brian Dumoulin or prospect P.O Joseph, who are best kept.