The Pittsburgh Penguins have acquired center Cody Glass from the Nashville Predators, the team announced Tuesday.
Glass, 25, is signed through the end of the 2024-25 season at a $2.5 million cap hit. The trade also brings in a 2025 third-round pick and a 2026 sixth-round pick, now giving Pittsburgh three third-round picks in 2025 after the draft pick swap with the St. Louis Blues earlier on Tuesday:
After the trade, the Penguins find themselves sitting just $249,233 below the salary cap. They also have an excess of center depth on the roster now, with Lars Eller, Kevin Hayes, Blake Lizotte, Noel Acciari, and Glass all natural centers. Because of this, it stands to reason that the Penguins could make another move to offload one of those contracts to give them more cap flexibility throughout the season.
The 6-foot-3, 205-pound Glass was drafted sixth overall in 2017 by the Vegas Golden Knights and has registered 29 goals and 71 points in 187 career NHL games between Vegas and Nashville. Up to this point, he has not quite lived up his first-round pedigree, but he brings some size, speed, and some untapped scoring upside to the Penguins’ bottom-six, and he is effective at both ends of the ice.
Cody Glass has been playing some of his best hockey of the season the last few weeks. Here he gets rewarded for the effort with his 3rd goal of the year.
Great play between him and Sissons. pic.twitter.com/BekV6xgmLD
— Alex Daugherty (@AlexDaugherty1) March 2, 2024
Penguins’ general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas has gone on record saying that he wanted to add some younger talent with upside to the roster, and the trade for Glass – both a cap dump move for Nashville and a change-of-scenery move for Glass – helps address that.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Penguins will make any additional moves in the same vein prior to the start of training camp next month.
Related: Three RFA Options that Make Sense for the Penguins
Related: Breaking: Penguins Sign Top Draft Pick to Entry-Level Contract
Related: Five Penguins’ Storylines to Keep an Eye on in 2024-25