The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 NHL trade deadline.
Penguins get: Forward Tommy Novak, defenseman Luke Schenn
Predators get: Forward Michael Bunting, fourth-round pick in 2026
Sean Gentille: Tommy Novak is the best player involved in this deal. If that signpost matters to you — and it probably should — the Penguins are your winner. Beyond that, two bad teams exchanged a few players who are varying degrees of mediocre. See you on Friday morning, when more important stuff is sure to go down.
What makes it worth discussing a bit more, though, is what it potentially says about Pittsburgh’s short- and medium-term plans. The first bit: the Penguins aren’t going into tank mode, despite starting Wednesday’s games with the sixth-worst points percentage in the league.
Novak, 27, immediately becomes the third-best center on the roster, behind Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. He had 13 goals and nine assists for the Preds this season and had played his way back into their top six — though that’s not saying much.
Frankly, it’d be easy to argue that Nashville’s disaster of a season traces, in no small part, back to the decision to rely on Novak as the center for Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault.
It wasn’t a foolish bet, necessarily; he’d become a productive, play-driving, chance-creating center in a limited role, and the Preds didn’t have any more sensible in-house options. Novak, though, was exposed in relatively quick fashion; it’s fair to say now that he’s a pretty good third-liner but probably not much more than that.
In a vacuum, that’s something the Penguins could use. More generally, we know that Kyle Dubas is looking (in part) for decent, young-ish NHL players, and Novak certainly qualifies as such. Put him with some decent wingers, be careful of who you play him against and enjoy the results. That’s what Nashville did in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Did the Preds put a little too much dip on his chip for this season? Sure. Things happen.
Beyond that, the deal is more proof that Pittsburgh isn’t necessarily punting on next season, either. Novak is a decent player signed to a reasonable contract ($3.5 million AAV for two more seasons). He might not be more; he’s certainly nothing less. If you’re prioritizing your lottery odds, you do not go out and acquire the Tommy Novaks of the world to play on your bottom six.
As for Schenn, he’s aged out as a player capable of taking a regular shift on a good team, but he remains a tough, well-liked, high-character pro. You’re not losing anything by having him around — and if nothing else, there will always be a team that’s chasing that sort of thing. It’s just a little odd that, in this case, that team seems to be the Penguins.
Bunting is what he is; a third-line winger who can score some goals and play with some physicality. Should you need to play him on a skill line, he won’t look out of place. He’s not any sort of difference-maker, though, which makes Nashville’s role here even stranger than Pittsburgh’s. The Preds are going nowhere this season; why not keep Novak around for the 2025-26 reset?
Penguins grade: C
Predators grade: D
Shayna Goldman: This is … a trade. What’s a deadline without a head-scratcher to shake things up?
It’s a bit more perplexing from the Predators’ side of things — not because Schenn or Novak have been perfect in Nashville this season. But taking on Bunting is a choice, who has scored at a career-low rate of 1.67 points per 60 this year.
To Bunting’s credit, there have been some positives that could help the Predators when he returns to the lineup. He’s productive on the power play and has had a positive impact on the Penguins’ five-on-five expected goal generation since joining the team. Bunting’s a pesky forechecker who can recover pucks and extend offensive zone time. His zone entry rate and efficiency also trended up this season.
Even with those positives in mind, this just doesn’t thread the needle enough for Nashville. Sure, the team gains some cap space in the process and could flip Bunting again ahead of the deadline or over the summer. It’s a questionable one for the Predators. It’s safe to say the hype has died down around Barry Trotz, who was the trendiest general manager after an aggressive offseason. The vision is just really confusing now.
The Penguins’ side of the equation is still imperfect, but it makes some sense at least. Novak hasn’t lived up to the promise that he showed in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Novak’s transition play was an outright standout for a Predators team that needed more offense off the rush. But his zone entry rate has declined, from 21.4 per 60 last year to 18.4 this season, according to Corey Sznajder’s tracking. And so has Novak’s efficiency, from 77 percent, which was among the best in the league, to 59 percent.
Novak, at least, is still a reliable puck retriever who can help break the puck out of his own zone, and a solid forechecker. With a reasonable $3.5 million cap hit for another two years, this is the kind of reclamation project the Penguins should be investing in.
The Schenn of it all is where it gets a bit more puzzling. At 35, he doesn’t exactly fit with the Penguins’ current direction — unless management intends to flip him again. Pittsburgh could use its last salary retention slot to maximize a return on the veteran defender (and next year’s commitment shouldn’t be a problem with the Penguins’ two other filled slots expiring over the summer). Maybe that will get management a better return than any other Bunting trade could have offered. So until another shoe drops — assuming there will be another shoe — this deal feels somewhat incomplete for the Penguins.
Penguins grade: C+
Predators grade: D+
(Photo of Tommy Novak: Brett Carlsen / Getty Images)
