PITTSBURGH — It seems as if everyone is throwing their two cents toward the Penguins with advice about what to do with Jake Guentzel. You would think the team would have enough money to do a new deal with Guentzel.

If only it were that simple.

Kyle Dubas won’t have many tougher decisions during his time as Penguins general manager than the one he has to make with Guentzel. Should the team keep Guentzel for the long haul by locking him into a new deal in the next few weeks? Should it keep him in an attempt to make another playoff run and then try to do that new contract after the season knowing he could leave as a free agent? Or should it trade him before the March 8 deadline?

I get a headache thinking about the possibilities.

There are plenty of good reasons to keep Guentzel, starting with the fact he is a wonderful player. A two-time 40-goal scorer, he is on pace for 39 this season. His 49 points in 46 games rank just behind Sidney Crosby’s 50.

Perhaps an even bigger reason to keep Guentzel is that Crosby loves playing with him. You have to think Dubas wants to keep his captain happy, right? Especially with Crosby having just one season left on his contract? It’s hard to think Crosby would ever leave unless he is convinced a team rebuild is imminent.

Guentzel is the best finisher Crosby has had. Crosby has assisted on 114 of Guentzel’s 219 career goals, his second-most assists with any teammate, according to Penguins historian Bob Grove. Crosby has assisted on 137 of Evgeni Malkin’s 487 career goals, but 91 of those Malkin goals came on the power play.

But there also are reasons to trade Guentzel rather than risk losing him as a free agent. He will turn 30 on Oct. 6. It’s true that he plays a “fearless game” — Mike Sullivan’s description — despite having a rather diminutive build. But it’s fair to wonder how his body will hold up as he ages. He takes a physical beating in many games.

There also is Guentzel’s contract to consider. He is making $6 million this season in the final year of the five-year, $30 million extension he signed in December 2018. He rightfully expects a big raise in his next deal, perhaps a really big raise.

But how much should that raise be?

I can’t imagine Guentzel getting or even asking for William Nylander money. Nylander signed an eight-year, $92 million deal with Toronto a month ago, an average cap hit of $11.5 million. Nylander, who won’t turn 28 until May 1, is on pace this season to have his second 40-goal season.

It’s hard to imagine any NHL club — let alone the Penguins — going that high and that long for Guentzel because of his age, frame and courageous playing style.

Still, Guentzel won’t come cheap.

“Could it get ugly? Yes, it could,” Guentzel’s agent, Ben Hankinson, said last month of the negotiations on Sirius XM’s NHL Network Radio.

Guentzel is the one player who could help Dubas start to retool — or, yes, even rebuild — his aging team. But even that possibility is complicated. The return for Guentzel will be at least slightly less as a rental player than it would be if he had contract term left. A trade partner might really want Guentzel but would have to feel like it could do a new contract with him. Vancouver traded for Calgary center Elias Lindholm — a comparable player to Guentzel and a free agent at the end of the season — on Wednesday, giving up winger Andrei Kuzmenko, a 39-goal man last season, two defensive prospects, a No. 1 draft pick in 2024 and a conditional fourth-round pick.

So what should Dubas do?

I would be willing to sign Guentzel before the trade deadline if he takes something of a hometown discount, maybe $8 million or $8.5 million per season. He loves playing with Crosby as much as Crosby does with him. Staying here might be worth a little less to him.

But if Guentzel wants to test free agency? I wouldn’t blame him one bit for that. I never blame a player for trying to get the most he can. But if that’s the case, I would trade him rather than risk losing him for nothing at the end of the season.

I understand Crosby wouldn’t like that, but at this point, I would say, “Sorry, Sid. This is a business decision we feel we have to make.”

The Penguins should have traded Malkin in 2018 and shouldn’t have resigned him in 2022. But they wanted to keep Crosby, Malkin and Kris Letang together. It was a nice thought and made a lot of fans happy, but the return on their recent investment hasn’t been much. This season’s team is out of the playoffs as we head into February and might miss out for the second year in a row. It was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in each of the previous four seasons.

Maybe the Penguins will figure out their woeful power play before that March 8 deadline. Maybe they will go on a run and take a big step toward that postseason spot. Maybe, hard as it is to believe now, they will look like a legitimate contender in April.

Maybe then it would make more sense to keep Guentzel.

But as of now?

No.