5 NHL Trade Landing Spots for Rickard Rakell Amid Rumors

We know this much about the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins: It is going to be a rebuilding year. We just don't know how intense that rebuild is going to be.

As things stand in mid-August, it looks like they are headed for a long season that will likely result in a very high lottery draft pick. The defense is bad. The goaltending is worse. And their best players are all well into their 30s.

The Penguins are not a particularly good team and could end up being worse before the season begins if they make any additional trades.

The most likely trade candidates include defenseman Erik Karlsson and forwards Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell.

All three have already been mentioned in trade speculation all summer, and that is going to continue until one or all of them are moved.

Rakell's name was in trade rumors leading up to the 2024-25 trade deadline, but the Penguins never received an offer that made them jump. He is coming off a career year offensively and is signed to a team-friendly contract, so there is some value to be had here.

The question is which teams could—or should—have interest in him.

So let's take a look at some teams that should be calling the Penguins over the coming weeks and months.

Every time I think of a potential landing spot for Rakell, I gravitate toward the Los Angeles Kings.

The match just seems perfect. Especially now this offseason and the way everything has gone so far.

The Kings are stuck in a rut where they have become a consistent playoff team, but they are not good enough to get beyond the first round. They have had four consecutive first-round losses to the Edmonton Oilers, and their lack of consistent goal-scoring is still one of their biggest flaws.

They can push possession. They defend well (though that might change after this offseason). They do pretty much everything you want to see a contending team do. They just need more offense.

Even if Rakell does not score 35 goals again and regresses to a 20-25 range, he would still be a good value and good player, while bringing some much-needed offense and creativity to their top-six.

The Kings would need to get creative with the salary cap (they have around $2.5 million in open space) or have the Penguins retain some salary, but it would not require a ton of work. It's a perfect fit. The Kings should explore it.

The Red Wings have to do something else this offseason...don't they?

They cannot possibly go into this season without any major moves beyond trading for John Gibson. They cannot possibly open the season with a roster that is largely unchanged from the one that hasn't been good enough to snap their playoff drought.

They cannot go into the season with more than $12 million in unused salary-cap space.

None of that would be an acceptable offseason.

They need more scoring up front, they have the salary-cap space to easily fit Rakell's contract in, and they have young players who could be flipped and would fit into the Penguins' long-term rebuild.

There has to be some urgency for Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings right now, given how long the playoff drought has been and how little progress has been made in the standings under his watch.

The free-agent market was a bust for Detroit. Trades are going to have to be the path from here. Any of the Penguins' potential trade chips would fit here.

The Senators finally played their way back into a playoff spot in 2024-25, earning their first trip to the postseason since their 2016-17 Eastern Conference Finals run.

They have a strong core group at the top of the lineup, an excellent goalie and a solid top-four on defense, but they are still lacking a little more offense. Another bona fide top-six scorer could help push them from "playoff team" to "fringe contender" in the Eastern Conference.

The Senators still have a little more than $4.2 million in salary-cap space at their disposal, so it would not require a lot of maneuvering or financial gymnastics to make it work.

Only two players on the Senators scored more than 25 goals during the 2024-25 season, and nobody scored more than Rakell's 35. They could really use another finisher like him at the top of their lineup.

The big hang-up might be Ottawa's lack of a first-round pick in 2026 and a weak farm system that is lacking in top prospects.

From a hockey standpoint, the Senators are a good match for Rakell.

Logistically, they may not have the assets the Penguins would want.

But that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

Now that the worst part of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyouts is off the books, the Minnesota Wild finally have some salary-cap flexibility to work with and can build the team they want.

They still have $9 million in cap space this summer (with Marco Rossi's RFA situation still looming) and could still probably afford to make some sort of a splash in the trade market.

The Wild kind of fizzled in the second half last season, but a lot of that was due to some significant injuries at both forward and defense. When they were healthy in the first half of the season, they were one of the best teams in the Western Conference. They have the potential to be that again with better health luck.

The Wild would also be a fascinating trade partner for the Penguins, mostly because they have one of the NHL's best and deepest farm systems and could probably make an offer for Rakell (or Bryan Rust) that nobody else in the league would be able to match.

Minnesota finished the 2024-25 season near the foot of the league in goals scored (25th), and while injuries to Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek played a role in that poor ranking, it's still a team that could use another finisher at the top of its lineup.

The Carolina Hurricanes have already had a bold offseason by signing forward Nikolaj Ehlers in free agency and trading for defenseman K'Andre Miller. Both moves are significant and add to an already strong team.

But why stop there? Especially when they are still swimming in salary-cap space due to how many team-friendly contracts they have on their roster.

After so many years of Stanley Cup hype and so many years of late playoff disappointments due to a lack of goal-scoring, the Hurricanes are going to be facing some big pressure and some big expectations to win it all this season. Or at least win the Eastern Conference. Is the team they have right now capable of doing that? Maybe.

If nothing else, it can get close. But with still $10.6 million in salary-cap space available, and with four first-round draft picks at their disposal over the next three seasons, why not take another big swing to try to get over the top in the Eastern Conference?

Every year, goal-scoring is one of the Hurricanes' biggest problems in the playoffs, and especially against elite teams, and Rakell would add another potential 25-35 goal-scorer into the mix.

This is a Stanley Cup-or-bust sort of year, and with so much salary-cap space available, the Hurricanes should still stay aggressive, even after already adding Nikolaj Ehlers and Miller.

That is one of the benefits of having your star players signed to team-friendly deals: You have the flexibility to keep adding around them. Carolina has that opportunity. It should keep adding.

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