5 Things The Penguins Should NOT Do This Summer

The NHL offseason has a chance to get REALLY crazy. But the Pens don't have to.

The Pens have a lot of work to do this Summer, and I expect them to get extremely creative and have a lot of different balls in the air (especially the “trade Erik Karlsson anywhere” ball.) But there’s a handful of things a team in their position (i.e., a rebuilding team that’s nowhere close to competing and has a thin prospect pool) should avoid. Here are five:

1. No Offer Sheets

Last year, the Blues successfully pried defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway from the Oilers by signing them to two simultaneous offer sheets that the Oilers didn’t match. Broberg signed for 2 years x $4.58 million, and Holloway signed for 2 x $2.29, with St. Louis sending Edmonton a 2nd and a 3rd round pick (respectively) as compensation for the signings. Both players ended up playing very well for the playoff-bound Blues this year.

With the salary cap going up next season and so many teams finding themselves flush with cap space, all of the sudden, every fanbase wants their team to do what St. Louis did and offer-sheet some other team’s good young Restricted Free Agent so they too can gain a young player for the low cost of a throw-in compensation pick. I’m skeptical many teams will be able to repeat what the Blues did this offseason, but I’m especially skeptical that the approach makes any sense for the Penguins.

Here are the compensation tiers for offer sheets in the 2025-26 offseason. If the Penguins sign anyone for over $4.68 million a year, they’d have to surrender their 1st round pick, which is way too rich. For anything over $2.34 million, they’d have to surrender their 2nd round pick, which, if they truly are “rebuilding” this year, could end up being near the top of the 2026 2nd round. The only offer sheets they’d realistically entertain would be for contracts worth under $2.34 million a year, which would only cost them a 3rd round pick. But in an offseason where the cap has jumped considerably, even teams with minimal cap space should have no trouble earmarking $2.3 million for a young RFA if they want to. If they don’t want to bring the player back, either because they need to shave off some money and/or want assets for the player back, they can just trade the player. There’s no need to go through the full dance of an offer sheet.

For example, say the Maple Leafs have decided that RFA winger Nick Robertson isn’t in their long-term plans. The odds that a team like the Penguins would give him an offer sheet for $2.3 million, have him sign that offer sheet, and have Toronto decide to not match it, feels very slim in an offseason where so many teams have lots of cap space to dole out and player salaries are about to skyrocket. Far more likely, Toronto would just let teams know he’s available in a trade and trade him for the best return possible. That return may end up being not that different than the offer sheet return, but a trade would avoid the whole sign-and-match rigamarole for the teams and the player.

Teams might try more offer sheets this Summer, but with the cap going up and the Pens likely being unwilling to give up their own 1st or 2nd round picks next Summer, there’s just not a scenario where an offer sheet is going to make sense for Pittsburgh. [Note: Thanks to @1TimWebster1 for correcting me, I originally said they didn’t have a 2nd for an offer sheet but they do have their 2026 pick.]

2. No Trading 1st Round Picks

There are many players who are rumored to be on the trade market that are obviously worth a 1st round pick — Minnesota’s Marco Rossi, Dallas’ Jason Robertson, Buffalo’s J.J. Peterka and Bowen Byram, and others — but that doesn’t mean that this current iteration of the Penguins should be the team that gives up that 1st round pick for them. There are so many other teams in the league who are trying to get better ASAP and have rich prospect pools or draft picks to spare: Carolina, Philadelphia, Montreal, Columbus, Nashville, Chicago, San Jose… the list goes on & on. Do we really want the Pens outbidding all of them for a win-now player when they’re in a very clear rebuilding stage?

1st round picks are lottery tickets that could turn into excellent players, solid players, or busts; in fact, it’s very likely that Marco Rossi will outproduce anyone the Pens take with their extra 1st rounder from the Rangers. But the Penguins franchise is in a state where they should be scratching off those lottery tickets in the hopes that some of them hit, even with the built-in knowledge that it’ll take years before most of those picks bear fruit, if they do at all. But that’s a risk they have to take. Robertson himself was a 2nd round pick, after all. You never know.

I’m completely in favor of the Pens trading current roster players, or for using their excess of draft picks and cap space to take advantage of other teams’ roster crunches, like they did when they traded a 4th rounder for Philip Tomasino last year. If they want to trade mid round picks for RFAs who’ll play a long term role in Pittsburgh, or for flippable deadline assets, or to move up in the draft, I’m all for it. But I don’t think the team is best served by trading a 1st and possibly more to sign a player (even a good one like Rossi) to a $7.5 mil long-term deal before they’re anywhere close to contending.

When the Pens do shore up their prospect foundation and are ready to try to improve, there will be other Rossis and Byrams on the trade market. Until then, embrace the uncertainty of those lottery tickets with the same enthusiasm that my aunts & uncles make SURE to tune into the Daily Number each night.

Many people disagreed with me about this on twitter. But I’m right.

3. No Buyouts

Obviously, if Kyle Dubas could simply make the contracts of Tristan Jarry and Ryan Graves disappear overnight, he would. Both players are almost certainly unmovable right now unless the Pens attach a valuable sweetener or take an equally-bad contract back, and even then, there’s no guarantee a taker is out there.

But with the Pens set to be in rebuild mode for at least one more year, it doesn’t make any sense for Dubas to use a buyout on either player. Graves has 4 years left on his deal; a buyout would stay on the Pens’ cap for 8 years. Jarry has 3 years left, so a buyout would last for 6 seasons. The Pens will almost certainly ice a very young lineup this season that won’t require them to spend all the way to the cap. They might as well just burn another year on Jarry and Graves’ contracts to make them easier to move or buyout when the team’s closer to trying to be good and needs the cap space.

4. No Trading Assets To Move Contracts

This is pretty similar to the point above, but I needed one more item to flesh out the list a little bit, so I did some padding. SUE ME. A list of “Four Things” just feels off, y’know?

Beyond Graves and Jarry each likely costing a major asset to move, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for the Pens to even trade minor picks to move some of their other veterans like Kevin Hayes, Noel Acciari, Alex Nedeljkovic, or Danton Heinen. All of their cap hits expire after this year, and the Pens will need some veterans around to fill out the depth chart. None of them will be “blocking” young players; any of them could be easily bumped down the depth chart or waived if the Pens need the ice time for younger players. And what the Pens wouldn’t want is to fill out the roster from Day 1 with only young players, have some of them get hurt or demonstrate they’re not ready for the NHL yet, and not really have a Plan B. Keeping some fungible vets around gives them the flexibility to ease the young kids in.

Of course, if a team wants any of those guys for free, or wants Graves or Jarry for a medium draft pick, then we can talk.

5. No Long-Term UFA Deals

This one seems like a no-brainer, but I fully expect a repeat of last season when it comes to the Pens and free agency. Last year, the Pens only signed guys to 1 and 2 year deals: Alex Nedeljkovic, Blake Lizotte, and (somehow?) Sebastian Aho The Defenseman™ each signed for two years, while Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk, Emil Bemstrom, and a handful of other AHLers signed for one.

This offseason, with the cap going up and so many teams trying to improve quickly, free agency season has a chance to be unprecedentedly insane. It just won’t make any sense for the Penguins to get into bidding wars for players whose primes will have almost surely expired by the time they’re anywhere close to competing.

I expect a couple surgical adds here & there (left D seems to be the obvious spot), but Kyle Dubas won’t exactly be speed-dialing the agents of Mitch Marner, Brock Boeser, or Sam Bennett next month. I’d be surprised if they even sign anyone on day one of free agency.

In conclusion… I probably should’ve written something about the Pens’ new head coach, but I had already started this one before the news broke, and I don’t have many takes about him other than “he seems interesting.” Gimme a day or two to figure out a way to translate that into a five-item list…