{"id":819749,"date":"2026-08-20T09:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T09:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819749\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T09:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T09:44:12","slug":"penguins-trade-prospect-cruz-lucius-to-anaheim-for-future-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/819749\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins trade prospect Cruz Lucius to Anaheim for future considerations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cruz Lucius, a prospect the Penguins acquired in the 2024 trade with Carolina for Jake Guentzel, was traded to the Anaheim Ducks for future considerations (aka nothing). Lucius declined Pittsburgh\u2019s offer of a contract<\/a> this spring, signaling his exit from the organization that he was only a tertiary part of in the first place.<\/p>\n

Most places listed Lucius as a free agent as of August 15th due to finishing four years of school. Very recent NCAA eligibility changes (known as a \u20185-for-5\u2019<\/a> where there are no longer redshirts and players in all sports are eligible to play five years) means Lucius actually could return to Arizona State again in 2026-27, if he wanted for a fifth and final year of collegiate play after spending two years at Wisconsin followed by the last two at ASU. Thus, he apparently didn\u2019t qualify for the murky guidelines that allow NHL teams to retain rights of collegiate players and a trade was necessary to facilitate his exit.<\/p>\n

Apparently, once and if Lucius files paperwork with the league to announce he has left college, he will now have his rights held by the Ducks for 30 days, if anyone was really curious about the minutiae involved in the process.<\/p>\n

Overall, Lucius was ranked 24th in the 2025 Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25 list. Since then he had his best collegiate season last year at Arizona State, posting 15 goals and 31 assists in 36 games. Had Lucius opted to sign with the Pens, he probably would have been in the 15th-17th range on this year\u2019s ranking. Instead the 22 year old will start his professional career outside of the Pens\u2019 organization, presumably with the Ducks.<\/p>\n

In the end, easy come, easy go in a situation like this. Interesting footnote that Lucius\u2019 rights apparently were retained by Pittsburgh after the Aug 15 date with the ever-shifting rules and classification for collegiate athletes these days, but that\u2019s about it. The player didn\u2019t want to join the organization and there was little recourse for them besides sending him on his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cruz Lucius, a prospect the Penguins acquired in the 2024 trade with Carolina for Jake Guentzel, was traded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":["post-819749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-general","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}