The Pens Are Back! What Did We Learn From This Offseason??

Taking stock of where the Penguins sit after a loud then VERY quiet offseason.

With Penguins training camp kicking back up this week, let’s get back into the spirit of hockey season by looking back at the Penguins’ Summer and what it tells us about the season ahead:

1. The Markets For Rust, Rakell, And Karlsson Were Underwhelming

The Penguins have roughly 430 forwards currently in camp, Kyle Dubas has repeatedly talked about young players pushing for jobs and the need to not “rush” the team’s rebuild. Everything the Pens have done since the Jake Guentzel trade 18 months ago indicate the Penguins are doing an all-out rebuild. So why is training camp opening with Erik Karlsson (35), Bryan Rust (33), and Rickard Rakell (32) all still on the roster?

The only explanation I can imagine is that there hasn’t been anywhere near the market for those players as Dubas (and salivating trade-deadline Pens fans) had hoped.

In Karlsson’s case, it’s hard to even pick a team he’d fit on right now. The Pens would have to trade him to a win-now contender who he’d willingly waive his no-trade clause for, and who could absorb at least a $5 million cap hit for the next two seasons, and is willing to trade assets to do so. Florida, Dallas, Tampa, and Vegas might have been fits, but none of them have the cap space. Toronto only has around $2 million in cap space and it’s hard to imagine that coach or fanbase dealing with Karlsson’s “unique” style of play for more than like half a game. Karlsson might entertain a return to Ottawa, but they’re cap-strapped too. Also, we just watched Florida win two Cups with a defensively-stifling team that was extremely physical. Does Karlsson check either of those boxes?

In the case of Rust and Rakell, I’m sure many teams would like to add either player and could easily fit their cap hits in this rising-cap environment, but in an offseason where there were whispers that players like Jason Robertson, Jordan Kyrou, and now maybe even Mason McTavish and Kirill Kaprizov could be available, I can’t imagine many teams have Rust or Rakell as their #1 “all-in” trade target. Teams always need centers, D, or elite talent; as we’ve seen from past trade deadlines, good complimentary wingers usually don’t fetch huge returns (except literally only Mikael Granlund for some reason.)

I think what will happen is, Karlsson will play in the Olympics for Sweden and the Pens will really try to parlay the buzz from how “he looked totally rejuvenated in those games” like he allegedly did in the Four Nations tourney into a deadline trade to a team who can absorb the hit for one additional year, and I think the Pens will eat 50% of the cap hit and/or take a contract back to get an asset.

In the case of Rust and Rakell, there are a lot of up-and-coming teams with plenty of picks & prospects hoping to make a leap forward this season — which is why I thought there’d be a market for them this Summer — but at this point, those teams at least want to see how their current rosters play out before making any more big moves. Some of those teams will end up in contention, though, and when we get closer to the deadline, they’ll have additional pressure on them to add to the roster. I could see one or both of players getting traded to someone like Minnesota, Detroit, Buffalo, Anaheim, Columbus, Utah, or Montreal.

2. The Pens Can’t Bank On Using Their Cap Space To Expedite The Rebuild

Even after not dumping any vets this offseason, the Penguins still have $12.9 million in cap space right now, and more than $50 million projected for next season. In the past, they could’ve used that space to take on other teams’ bad contracts and pick up some free draft picks, then potentially double-dip by re-trading those players at the deadline. The Pens got a 2nd rounder for taking Kevin Hayes’ $3.5 mil hit last year and a 3rd rounder for taking Cody Glass’s $2.5 mil (and another 3rd for re-trading him.)

This offseason, however, nearly every team had more cap space than they could even use, so players with high cap hits who might’ve been viewed as negative assets in the flat cap environment were getting traded for actual returns. Evander Kane ($5.1 mil) got traded for a 4th round pick, Viktor Arvidsson ($4 mil) got traded for a 5th round pick, Andrei Burakovsky ($5.5 mil x 2 years) got traded with no sweetener attached, Ivan Fedotov ($3.375 mil) got traded for a 6th round pick, and so on. In the past, teams would’ve had to include an asset with any of these guys just to get teams to take them.

The Penguins did shrewdly pick up a 2028 2nd rounder for taking on Matt Dumba’s $3.75 mil cap hit from Dallas, but otherwise, there were virtually zero instances where teams used their open cap space to acquire picks for taking on contracts. The cap is set to increase again for the next two years. Given the way this offseason went, the Penguins can’t count on “taking on contracts for picks” being a significant part of their rebuild strategy.

3. The Crosby Rumors Have Some Legs And Aren’t Going Away

Sidney Crosby trade rumors were always going to be a part of the season, particularly if the Pens droop down towards the bottom of the standings then Crosby & Dubas have to answer questions in road press conferences for months (and at the Olympics.) But now, with Crosby’s own agent chiming in, we had our first indication (however slight) of someone in Crosby’s camp actually floating the idea of him playing elsewhere:

“I mean, I’m answering something that … let’s put it this way, it’s always a possibility, you know?” Brisson said. “It’s been three years they haven’t made the playoffs. It all depends on how Sid is going to be and how the team is going to do. I maintain the same position that I do believe that he should be playing playoff hockey every year. In my opinion.”

The reality is, as much as Crosby has said he loves it in Pittsburgh and he doesn’t want to be traded, and as much as we can all yell at anyone online who dares to bring up the idea of Crosby ever being traded, he’s also 38 years old and the Penguins are in the very early stages of a full-on rebuild, and Kyle Dubas has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to take shortcuts to speed up the team’s timeline. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense for Crosby to be playing on this current iteration of the Pens.

Yes, Crosby can imbue good work habits into the younger players, and yes, it’d be unimaginable to see him wearing any other team’s jersey, but the reason all this speculation persists — besides the internet’s ever-insatiable desire to manufacture content — is because trading Crosby does make sense for all parties involved from a coldly rational perspective.

I’m not rooting for it to happen, but I am going to feel pretty silly deep down when I’m yelling “Crosby’s not going ANYWHERE you DIPSHIT” at people in March while Crosby’s skating with Ville Koivunen and Danton Heinen on a 13th place team.

4. Filip Larsson Is Alive

All offseason, I struggled to find any updates on the status of Filip Larsson, the former Swedish pro goaltender who the Pens signed to a two-year deal a season ago. He put up respectable AHL numbers — .910 SV% in 26 games with Wilkes-Barre, slightly lower than Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov’s but over more games — but even when the Pens traded away Alex Nedeljkovic (hopefully that’s the last time I have to go to HockeyReference and copy his last name and paste it), they backfilled him with 23-year-old Canucks backup goalie Arturs Silovs.

With Silovs being waiver-eligible, the Pens’ goaltending tandems are probably set, barring injury: Tristan Jarry and Silovs in the NHL, and Sergei Murashov & Joel Blomqvist in the AHL. Where does that leave Larsson?

Would the Pens carry 3 goalies in the NHL? Would everyone get enough work if they have 3 goalies in the AHL? A 27-year-old backup goalie shouldn’t be one of the Pens’ bigger priorities right now, but I did find it odd how rarely he was mentioned this offseason. Backup goalies with sparse track records have almost no trade value, but teams are constantly looking for low-salary 3rd and 4th goalies over the course of seasons when injuries mount, and I could see Larsson having some utility.

Anyway, Larsson is indeed alive and playing in camp. I’m interested to see where he ends up.

5. The Pens Might Fill The Waiver Wire This Season

Usually, coming out of camp, teams tend to lean towards keeping waiver-eligible NHLers over waiver-exempt “tweener” players so they don’t risk losing players unnecessarily and so that they’ll have enough bodies in the NHL and AHL to make it through the injury churn of a long season. In the Pens’ case, though, their training camp roster right now is packed with veteran players who probably wouldn’t even get claimed off waivers. That fact, coupled with Dubas’ comments about younger players pushing for jobs and the Pens’ overall obvious need for a youth movement could lead to the Pens filling the waiver wire with cut forwards at the end of training camp.

Even for a rebuilding team, there are some positives to keeping low-upside veterans: every team needs bodies over the course of a season, young players may not be ready to play in the NHL full time, you might prefer young players to play top line minutes in Wilkes-Barre than 4th line minutes in the NHL, and you don’t want an injury plague to leave you thin in the NHL and AHL. For those reasons, it’s possible the Pens might do a pretty standard “keep mostly vets, call up younger players as the season goes along” approach regarding who makes the team out of camp. But if they choose to rip the band-aid off, I wouldn’t be shocked to see players like Noel Acciari, Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves, Connor Dewar, Connor Clifton, Danton Heinen, or Matt Dumba on waivers coming out of camp or soon after.

In the meantime, though, hockey’s back!! I can’t wait to overrate Avery Hayes based on seeing him finish a 2-on-1 in a wobbly twitter video of a breakout drill.