Things have been quiet since the flurry of trades the Penguins made last weekend and Kasperi Kapanen’s contract extension. So how are things right now? How is the depth chart? Does it appear to be a team looking to make some noise?
We are still a few months from the start of the season, so there could still be movement. Currently, the team is technically above the salary cap. It would have to be a situation where they take out the salary to bring in the salary. Move-in candidates don’t have much value, so we might be looking closely at what the list will look like. I have divided the depth graph into three colors: green, yellow and red.
The Greens are players that I think make sense at their price point and what the roster needs given where they are in their franchise arc.
The yellow players have some questions and the arguments could go either way.
The Reds are players who I perceive are not necessary for the current task of trying to win the Stanley Cup or at least have the ability to make a respectable career.
I’ll take a look at the forwards first.
There are 15 forwards on the list. These are the 15 most likely to see ice weather at some point this year. We have a lot of green at the top end of the list. Less near the bottom. This is not unusual for all teams. The amount of red is still worrying.
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell are the top six players. I understand why they are there and why they are paid what they are. The terminus on some of these players is not where you want to be with Rust and Rakell and less so with Malkin. These guys are going to drive the bus. They are strong points for 2022-23.
Jason Zucker is yellow because his salary cap and acquisition cost haven’t been very good for what the Penguins have gotten from him. He was making a Beau Bennett impression last year with injuries. When he was able to play he couldn’t score goals. I think he’s in for a comeback season on the goal-scoring front. The team doesn’t have respectable depth among forwards, so what are you going to do? His trade value isn’t great and you won’t get anything in return worth what Zucker is to the Penguins right now. This is a situation where you have to roll the dice and hope for the best. If he can stay on the ice, I think he’ll be a functional member.
This hypothetical third line is all red. Horrible value here. Jeff Carter looked washed out and still has a year to go. Brock McGinn is an overpaid depth player who looks like he’ll have to play the back row. It’s not a great situation. Kasperi Kapanen? Ugh, I still can’t believe they gave him two years at the same rate he was earning. He literally did nothing to deserve that commitment. Watching Nino Niederreiter sign his two-year 8M contract was hard to watch. How much better does the lineup look with Niederreiter instead of Kapanen? Instead, we have a third all-red line right now.
Fourth line has a very good center. Teddy Blueger is a perfect fourth row center for me. Ryan Poehling is one of those change of scenery situations. Former first round pick yada yada yada. It’s at 750k, so the cap is fine. It’s in yellow because I have no expectations. Josh Archibald is a retread of whatever. I have no interest in seeing him on the NHL roster.
The extras are apparently locked down at the moment. I gave Drew O’Connor a green mark because I thought there was some promise with him last year. He seems like a player we don’t know very well, but who showed at the NHL level last year that he wasn’t out of place. I bet he takes a good look at it to see if he can stay at some point. Radim Zohorna has had some time in the NHL with the team so far. I’m not as optimistic about him as O’Connor, but I’m fine with trying to see what a guy like him has instead of Drake Caggiula, who’s dressed in red. He and Josh Archibald should take a backseat to O’Connor and Zohorna.
I am very disappointed with the construction of the third and fourth lines.
here is the defense
We have more green. Kris Letang being an obvious candidate. Jeff Petry is green right behind him. The Penguins have a really solid one-two punch on the right side. Many teams would like to have just one of them.
Brian Dumoulin is in the red because he was such an obvious candidate to move for cap space, but they value him as if he’s still the player he used to be. He will be 31 in a couple of months, coming off multiple injuries in the past few years, and also coming off a streak of some of the worst hockey of his career. He could ask the obvious question of how he can say this and at the same time say that he should be traded. It is easy. NHL GMs can’t help but be drawn to guys like Dumoulin, two-time Stanley Cup champions with a track record of success. We see it all the time. Someone would have bitten.
Jan Rutta is something I still don’t understand. What else does Chad Ruhwedel have to do to maintain a third partner role on this team? He has been perfectly fine! Recently. This is the place in the depth chart that he saves at. The Penguins continue to overspend on the margins and thus run out of money to make any real trades. I hate signing Rutta both at the time and especially in hindsight with Petry on the roster.
Marcus Pettersson is in yellow because his salary cap is high for what it is, but what are you going to do? With Mike Matheson out and the team keeping Brian Dumoulin, I don’t know how you can feel comfortable signing a stable player like Pettersson. He can be nondescript. He is defensively effective and is a play-and-forget type of player. Before the Matheson deal, the team did everything they could to move Pettersson and no one bit. Thai means you won’t get much for it. Pettersson’s cap would be useful in trying to improve forwards, but at what cost to the defense at this point?
Pierre-Olivier Joseph is in an ELC and can probably play a lower matchmaking role. This is the price point where he wants to be in the bottom pairing. If Jan Rutta is going to eat up cap space, he needs to be able to work with someone like Joseph in a bottom pair.
Chad Ruhwedel and Mark Friedman are green because they’re exactly at the price point you want them to be at. The problem now is that they are very blocked by the others in the lineup. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team moved to Ruhwedel. I think that would be a mistake.
Edit: I accidentally dumped Ty Smith. It’s in the yellow category for me. I think he was in a tough spot in New Jersey. He has a very good prospect profile combined with a horrible 2021-22 NHL season. He would really help if this player can find himself in a new situation.
So this list has too much red. The red in him was avoidable. I think Ron Hextall did a very good job with the top of the lineup and “keeping the band together”. He has so far failed to support those players, specifically at the forward position.
Given the cap situation, I wouldn’t be optimistic about other moves to improve the list at this point. I would very much like to be wrong in this prediction.
Thank you for reading!