SUNRISE, Fla. — The Penguins will have a table full of scouts and team executives on the floor of BB&T Center tonight, just like the other 29 NHL clubs.
So sometime after 7 p.m., those club employees will have great seats to watch one of the most-anticipated opening rounds in recent draft history play out.
But that’s all they’ll be able to do.
That’s because the Penguins traded their first-round draft choice, which would have been the 16th overall, to Edmonton for winger David Perron in December.
Indeed, they also dealt their third- and fourth-round selections, so the biggest decision the scouts and executives will make through the first half of the draft might be whether to sip on soft drinks or bottled water while other teams are stocking their depth charts.
Nothing unusual about that, though. Regardless of whether Jim Rutherford or Ray Shero was general manager, the Penguins routinely have traded away early round draft choices in an attempt to bolster their lineup for playoff runs.
“We’ve been through it before,” said Jay Heinbuck, Penguins co-director of amateur scouting. “We’ve been a team that wants to win, so we’ve traded away our first-round pick sometimes. Other years, we’ve traded our second-round pick.
“We’ve sat through it and watched it all happen before. You get used to that. It’s the nature of the business, and the position we’ve been in.
“It’s difficult to just sit and watch and see a player you would have liked to have had, but in the back of your mind, you have to understand that, ‘Hey, that pick was traded away to try to make us better going to the playoffs.’ ”
Unless Rutherford is able to trade for an earlier choice, which seems unlikely, the Penguins’ first selection in this draft will come in the second round, No. 46 overall. That choice will be exercised Saturday, when Rounds 2-7 take place.
Although it’s impossible to predict precisely who will be available at that point, Heinbuck believes the Penguins reasonably can expect to pick up the rights to someone who could fill a meaningful role before the decade is over.
“I think we’d be satisfied if we could get a player who, three or four years down the road, would be a third-line player or a No. 3 or No. 4 defenseman,” he said. “And if that player ends up being better than that in the end, that’s gravy.
“I don’t think you have the expectation that you’re going to find a top-six forward in the middle of the second round. Sometimes, that does happen, but I don’t think that should be your expectation.”
Two players the Penguins have no hope of claiming at No. 46 — and wouldn’t have a shot at getting even if they owned the third overall pick — are centers Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel. They will be the first and second players selected, going to Edmonton and Buffalo, respectively.
Both are projected to be franchise cornerstones — McDavid has been likened to Sidney Crosby for several years — and they are the most imposing two at the top of the draft board since 2004, when Washington snared Alex Ovechkin with the first choice and the Penguins got Evgeni Malkin at No. 2.
“The only other two I can think of is the [Taylor] Hall-[Tyler] Seguin duo [in 2010],” Heinbuck said. “But I think McDavid and Eichel probably would have to go a little bit above them.
“I know Edmonton won the lottery. But if I’m Buffalo, I’m real happy, still, with Jack Eichel.”
While McDavid and Eichel are the unquestioned headliners in this draft class, they’re hardly the only potential standouts. Forwards such as Lawson Crouse, Dylan Strome and Mitchell Marner have wowed the scouts, and defensemen such as Noah Hanifin and Ivan Provorov all but have “can’t-miss” tattooed on their foreheads.
The only thing missing, it seems, is a guy guaranteed to become a dominant goaltender.
“I’m not sure there’s going to be a real high-end goalie,” Heinbuck said. “If there’s a goalie taken in the first round, in my opinion, it would be really late. I won’t be surprised if there’s not even one taken in the first round.”
Dave Molinari: Dmolinari@Post-Gazette.com and Twitter @MolinariPG.
First Published: June 26, 2015, 4:00 a.m.