It’s been an interesting offseason. The right-handed defenseman who is expected to set the market has just signed a one-year trade deal with a team not expected to compete for a Stanley Cup. The center expected to set the market is still unsigned 18 days after free agency opens. And the Pittsburgh Penguins locked up both their right defender and center in what were expected to be below-market deals, but they need to clear more cap space.
The two main questions before the Penguins and general manager Ron Hextall are: How do they clear more cap space? Are they Stanley Cup contenders?
After all, there would be no reason to sign Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin to long-term contracts of 35-plus years if the Penguins weren’t Cup contenders.
1. Penguin Contract Comparison
You can’t really compare John Klingberg’s one-year, $7 million deal with the Anaheim Ducks to Kris Letang’s six-year, $36.6 million deal. It seems that Klingberg didn’t like teams offering big deals or he wanted more than what they were offering and cleared for next season. It’s not to say that Kris Letang wouldn’t have gotten more than $9 million on a shorter deal from another team.
Alex Letang, Kris’s youngest son who joined his draft contract news conference in Montreal, admitted the family had been shopping in town.
Yet despite Klingberg’s status as the No. 1 or 1A right-handed defender on the market, he’s a slight step behind. kris letang, who routinely finishes in the top 10 in Norris Trophy voting. Klingberg hasn’t signed up for Norris’s vote in the past four seasons.
There are plenty of teams that would have paid Letang $36 million.
It’s much harder to compare Yevgeny Malkin’s contract. Perhaps the Penguins fans and media are too close to the situation to answer objectively. Malkin is one of the great players in the league, but it’s not easy to know what he was worth. It was a pure guessing game, even if Sportsnet reporter Elliotte Friedman reported that several teams were ready with big deals.
2. Should the Pittsburgh Penguins only carry 12 forwards to fit under the cap?
The Penguins could live in limbo under the NHL’s salary cap carrying just 12 forwards, but is that a viable solution?
Nope.
COVID and week-long COVID absences will probably stay with us for a while longer. As long as that little bug is running around the planet faster than bad gossip, there’s a chance that on any given afternoon before a game, one or three players could be out without warning.
Shooting with only 12 forwards means the perpetual risk of playing with 10 or 11 forwards.
Even when one or two forwards return to the lineup, another or two could leave. The team could fall short for several games without cap space to call up multiple players.
That seems like a perpetual risk not worth taking.
3. Brian Boyle and Evan Rodrigues
Last week, PHN reported (exclusively, I think) that Brian Boyle wants to play this season and that there was at least some hope or expectation that he might play again in Pittsburgh.
That was before Danton Heinen agreed to a one-year, million-dollar deal.
The Pittsburgh Penguins no longer have center depth. Last season, they could have six centers in the lineup or available. This upcoming season, they appear to be at four. ryan poehling he’s a center but he didn’t stay in the middle for the Montreal Canadiens. He is her fifth. Maybe Josh Archibald is the sixth center?
Brian Boyle scored 12 goals on a minimum contract or about three times as many goals as Dominik Simon and Zach Aston-Reese scored with the Penguins last season. He was part of the Penguins’ fierce penalty shootout that finished in the top three in the league. And he’s a burly fourth row player.
evan rodrigues he scored 19 goals and was Mike Sullivan’s Swiss army knife.
Are Archibald and Poehling suitable replacements?
The answer would seem to be an immediate “no,” but Rodrigues and Boyle weren’t exactly top-priority players last summer. Boyle came in on a PTO, and Rodrigues had been a part-time player, a healthy part-time scratch the previous season.
Poehling and Archibald may be fine, though if either of them scores 19 goals, the Penguins could be in a very, very good position.
But it appears Boyle and Rodrigues won’t re-sign with the Penguins unless additional forwards are involved in any Penguins trade.
**Lastly, THANK YOU to PHN readers. You pushed us to over 1.4 million readers in July. That’s a 40% increase from our previous July and nearly a 30% increase from our previous best result in May. Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson have been rock stars on this crazy road. Steelers and Pirates coverage is going very well. This little startup is really sprouting.
