We’re in the thick of The Hockey News’ NHL summer splash series – our rankings of the off-seasons of each NHL team, moving in reverse from the 32nd-place Buffalo Sabres to the No. 1 spot. And today’s team is No. 14 in the series – the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Looking at every team’s lineup additions, departures, and hirings and firings where applicable, we’ve come up with a consensus on where teams are in the moves they’ve made this summer. Some teams have clearly improved, some teams have made a slight improvement or have been radio silent when it comes to trades and signings. And some teams have regressed.
The Penguins are a good example of a team that’s made some extensive changes – particularly, regarding their defense and goaltending – and we’ve judged Pittsburgh to be slightly better than they were at the end of another disappointing season. As we’ll explore below, they’re a team that’s gotten slightly better, but that doesn’t mean you should start planning to see the Pens in the playoffs next year. They changed things up with trades and signings, but we’re not sure they’re even going to be in the mix for post-season hockey.
Additions
Arturs Silvovs (G), Anthony Mantha, LW; Justin Brazeau, RW; Matt Dumba, D; Connor Clifton, D; Parker Wotherspoon, D; Alexander Alexeyev, D
The Breakdown: When you’re fortunate enough to employ superstar Sidney Crosby, star forward Evgeni Malkin, and defensemen Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson, you have fewer needs than many teams. Thus, Penguins GM Kyle Dubas went out and made seven additions to bolster his team, but we don’t expect all six of the above players to be needle-movers for Pittsburgh.
The one big question mark that could propel the Pens into the playoffs is new goalie and former Vancouver Canuck Silovs. The Penguins desperately need better goaltending than they had last year, and if Silovs can provide it, that will be a huge advantage for Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, Mantha is a reclamation project who has hit the 20-goal mark just once since 2018-19. Brazeau is known for his physical play, but he’s not going to body-check the Penguins into the victory column. Dumba was a salary dump by the Dallas Stars, and Clifton and Wotherspoon were acquired to fill out the last defense pairing.
All of this is to say that, weighed against the players they parted ways with, the Bruins have indeed slightly improved. But there’s still a long road ahead for some of these players, and Pittsburgh’s defense corps in particular was the focus of Dubas & Co. as he worked his way through the off-season. In sum, we’d say this is a “nothing to write home about, but technically speaking, they did improve” team.
Departures
Alex Nedeljkovic (G), Matt Grzelcyk, (D), Conor Timmins, (D), P.O. Joseph (D), Matt Nieto (LW)
The Breakdown: In some ways, this category is a plus for the Penguins. They didn’t move heaven and earth to trade Karlsson – but that may still happen – and after getting rid of five fringe players, they didn’t take too big a hit. The most visible loss is Nedeljkovic, who had some stretches of good play last season, but he didn’t do it consistently.
So, the primary loss for Pittsburgh is Grzelcyk – a decent-enough blueliner who somehow still is without a contract as of early August – and after that, you’re talking about a regular healthy scratch in Timmins, and two players (Joseph and Nieto) who combined to produce six points last year. Six. These players may be strong positive influences in the dressing room, but if we’re talking purely about how they slot in on paper, you can see why the Penguins weren’t notably better, but they still had a better off-season than half of the league.
Indeed, the focus of the Pens should be about the future, and sometimes, doing that means you have to strip things down. Dubas hasn’t bought into that concept at this point, but if the Penguins stall and start to spiral, there will be a strong push to trade veterans Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell. And it’s getting close to high time that Dubas makes more substantial moves than he’s done this off-season.
The Bottom Line
The Penguins have missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for the past three seasons, and they haven’t won a playoff round in seven years. And that’s with some of the top talent in the world on their team. That’s a stunning reality that should sober up Pens management and get them advocating a push to be out of the Mushy Middle of the league – not good enough for playoff action, and not bad enough to land a top prospect at the beginning of the draft.
So, when we have them relatively in the middle of the pack this summer in these ratings, don’t take it to mean we see the Penguins storming out and securing a playoff berth. They should be viewed with skepticism until they prove themselves worthy of fan and management confidence. And if things go sideways and they’re near the bottom of the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference standings, you better believe there will be a PR nightmare until Dubas shows he’s going ahead fully focused on the future and starts making blockbuster moves.
Otherwise, it all feels like the Penguins are running to stand still. They’ve got too many third-and-fourth-line talent and too many question marks on defense and in net. They were active this summer, but the bottom line is that we don’t see their additions/departures column as having moved them much at all in our summer splash rankings. Yes, they didn’t regress, but a slight progress isn’t much to write home about. And time will tell whether these moves were precursors to blockbuster deals during the year.
Summer Splash Rankings
14. Pittsburgh Penguins
16. Ottawa Senators
17. Boston Bruins
18. Edmonton Oilers
19. Minnesota Wild
20. Seattle Kraken
27. Dallas Stars
28. Calgary Flames
30. Winnipeg Jets
32. Buffalo Sabres
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