Hurricanes 5, Penguins 1: The First Overall Pick Is Legitimately Within Reach

The Pens played pretty well! It didn't even come CLOSE to mattering!

The Pens lost to the Hurricanes in Raleigh Thursday night, 5-1, despite doubling them up in shots 36-18. They fall to 5-8-2 on the year, and still haven’t beaten a team that made the playoffs last season. Some thoughts:

1. The first overall pick is not out of reach, at all

The Penguins are now 7th from last in the NHL in terms of points percentage. Two of the teams they’re above, Nashville and Seattle, aren’t in rebuilding mode and probably won’t give up on the season unless things are still very dire at the trade deadline. Otherwise, Pittsburgh is ahead of San Jose, Montreal, Philly, and Chicago, and that’s it. They’re also not trailing any obviously-overperforming teams other than some combination of Anaheim, Columbus and Calgary.

The Penguins are, at the moment, firmly one of the worst teams in the NHL. They probably can’t quite out-terrible all those other teams, but they haven’t suffered too many injuries or traded anyone away yet, so they have room to get worse. There’s a chance they run off some wins at some point, but, soberly, they have a very real chance to finish in the bottom-5 and get a decent crack at the lottery.

If you’re gonna burn a season, that’s the way to do it.

2. Does Rickard Rakell’s breakout matter?

Coming off two assists against the Islanders, Rickard Rakell looked solid again against Carolina, winning puck battles, being confidently patient with the puck, and uncorking another 5 shots on goal. He’s been the Pens’ best winger this season, racking up 6 goals and 5 assists so far — a 30+ goal pace. Even if the Pens break up Crosby & Malkin, Rakell should continue to pad his numbers playing in the top 6 and on the power play.

This raises the question: Could the Pens actually trade Rakell this year? Moving him in last year’s cap environment was absolutely impossible. It’s still highly unlikely a team would trade something for him, since he’s got three more years left at $5 mil per season and he’s already 31 with a shaky injury history. But I do wonder, if he keeps putting up these numbers, if just maybe there’s a creative deal to be had out there — something like, a win-now team up against the cap trades a small asset and a bad contract to the Pens for Rakell, basically “paying” the Pens by giving them a contract that expires slightly sooner.

Trade him to Edmonton and take back Evander Kane? Or to the Islanders and take back J.G. Pageau? Still seems like an unlikely proposition, because there’s always tons of wingers available and teams won’t want to deal with the hassle of his remaining term. But Rakell has to be playing extremely well for any conversation to even start. So far, he has been.

3. This really might be Carolina’s year

Even though it’s early in the season, watching the teams in the East play so far, I’d be surprised if the Eastern Conference Champions are anyone other than Carolina, Florida, or the Rangers. Yes, some upstart Eastern teams look rejuvenated (Washington, New Jersey) and some of the usual suspects are hanging around (Tampa Bay, Toronto) and a lot can happen between now and when the playoffs start 18 months from now. But those three teams, to me, look like they have the highest “if everything goes right, how good is this team” ceilings in the conference and should be all-in at the deadline.

Now, would I be totally surprised if Carolina octuples Washington’s shots in a 7-game series and still somehow loses? No I would not.

4. Blake Lizotte has a clear role on this team

Blake Lizotte is only four games into his Penguins career and hasn’t played a ton, but as advertised, he seems to be the “young” version of the type of bottom-6 player Kyle Dubas targeted last offseason: a guy who can eat a bunch of defensive zone draws and not get buried when he’s on the ice. Against Carolina, he was on the ice for 6 defensive zone draws (Crosby & Malkin were each out for 1), and in 11:48 of ice time, he was on for 16 Penguins shot attempts to 4 by the Hurricanes and 68.7% of the expected goals. He also scored the Pens’ lone goal.

Obviously, it’s dumb to read too far into shot-attempts numbers from one guy in one game of the season, but you can see the blueprint for Lizotte’s future on this team. He’ll be the go-to fourth line center who can suck up some of the tough defensive-zone minutes as the team begins to pepper in younger players into the top-9 after the trade deadline and into next season. He’s still under 30, he’s cheap, and he’ll let them trade their veteran bottom-6ers without having to call up their prospects and force them into difficult defensive roles they’re not suited for.

5. Is Erik Karlsson gonna finish out his career with the Pens?

Erik Karlsson had a couple more unbelievably bad moments Thursday night. This is way too long of a discussion for the fifth of five bullet points in a postgame column after another pointless game but, is there any chance the Pens and Karlsson part ways before his deal (with two years left) is up?

The only deal that’s ever really made sense has been if Karlsson wants to go back to Ottawa and Ottawa wants him back. Dealing anyone with a $10 million cap hit for two more years and a full no-movement clause is eeeeever so slightly tricky, to say the least, but if Ottawa continues to grow desperate to take that “next step” and wants a heartwarming reunion story for the fans, and is fine with a deal that’s basically just taking Karlsson’s contract for free and sending any salary they want back (Nick Jensen’s $3 million at least, I’d think, though Ottawa doesn’t have many obviously-bad big-money contracts), maybe all parties can come to some sort of agreement.

Karlsson already plays a, let’s say, low-intensity defensive game, and he’s looked and sounded downright miserable at times this season. He often feels like he’s going through the motions during an obvious rebuild on a team he got traded to because he thought they’d be a contender. It’s not impossible that he and the team just grit their teeth through this year and he tries a little harder next year if the team tries a little harder in the offseason. But if there’s even a crack of daylight at shipping Karlsson out, as long as it won’t require moving a major asset or too much retention to be worth it, I have to think the Pens would jump all over it.