Playoffs and Trades: Forecasting the Rest of the Penguins Season

The Pittsburgh Penguins had a chance to climb back to hockey .500 Saturday. Without Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Bryan Rust, the team played well and deserved a win but lost in regulation to the Philadelphia Flyers. The locker room was balancing the satisfaction from dominating the game with the heartbreak of losing.

Things are rarely simple for the Penguins.

The defeat kept the Penguins six points out of a playoff position and outside realistic reach. It was a four-star effort but an unfortunate loss as the teams they’re chasing lost, too.

If 95 points is the playoff line, the Penguins are in deep trouble, but they’ve known that for a few weeks. The Penguins have 55 points and 50 possible points remaining. Yep, they’d have to take 80% of the remaining points to get to 95. Just to get to 90 points, which probably won’t make the postseason, they’ll need 70%.

When P.O Joseph spoke with Pittsburgh Hockey Now Saturday night about his game and the loss, he admitted the team again waited too long to put together a good stretch of hockey–just as they did last season.

“And we’re making a playoff push right now–even though it’s a little late,” Joseph said. “I’m just trying to be out there and help the team win as much as possible.”

Those 12 games in January, the five-game homestand followed by the seven-game road trip, will serve as the defining moments of their disappointment in April. They won just four of those 12 games and ceded points to several of the worst teams in the NHL. As their losses piled up, other wild-card contenders were stacking wins.

Yet, while fans can say, “Pack it in!” the players and coaches will not. Staying in the fight for as long as possible, despite the very unlikelihood of a positive outcome, is the very necessity of professional sports. If the Penguins were to concede now, the mood and the team culture would quickly rot.

Why is that important? As the organization attempts to bring in young players, it’s crucial to insert them into a good environment that promotes good habits and expectations. Many teams with talented young players have failed because the organization lacked the culture guard rails for young players.

Also, pride. Plenty of players are playing for contracts next season or greater roles now. For example, Alex Nedeljjkovic. He’s seizing his first chance in several years to be a No. 1. goalie. Matt Grzelcyk is showing the league he is a top-four defenseman. Others like Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass suffered the ignominy of being a salary dump.

The playoff chase, however unlikely, is the unifying force for individual goals.

So, the first prediction is that the Penguins will go down swinging.

2. The next Penguins trade won’t rock the world

It’s entirely possible that a team like the Tampa Bay Lightning, Ottawa Senators, or even the LA Kings could entice Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas with a hefty offer for Rickard Rakell. Still, Dubas could also bet that Rakell’s value might keep climbing, too. With a paltry salary cap hit of just $5 million in a league that will soon have a $100 million salary cap, Rakell’s cost, talent, and production make him incredibly valuable.

Rakell is also very valuable to the Penguins, too. Remember, this isn’t going to be a cleaning house rebuild. Dubas has the power to hang a price tag on Rakell and wait until the right buyer comes along. Sidney Crosby surely wouldn’t mind having Rakell stick around, either.

We’ll repeat from Sunday: Rakell should bring no less than three assets, including a first-round pick and a valued B-level prospect.

An under-the-radar name to watch is goalie Alex Nedeljkovic. There are a few teams with Stanley Cup hopes that have surely taken notice of Nedeljkovic grabbing the Penguins’ net.

In his last eight starts, Nedeljkovic has a .944 save percentage at even-strength (4th best among goalies with at least five appearances) and a .934 stopper rate at all strengths (second best behind only Andrei Vasilevskiy).

With Rakell, Dubas has the luxury of time because Rakell has three more years remaining on his contract, and Nedeljkovic has another year on a bargain deal, too.

No, the likely trades between now and March 7 are the smaller deals, such as ones involving Grzelcyk, Hayes, or even Noel Acciari.

The boat-rocking trades, such as Erik Karlsson, Rakell, or Bryan Rust, are summer trades, though don’t expect EVERYONE to go. However, Expect Dubas to clear some space for the prospects to get a good look in March and April.

3. Sid’s Record, Letang Chatter

Sidney Crosby is averaging a point per game or more, and he has a chance to break Wayne Gretzky’s record with his 20th season of doing so. Pursuant to not giving up, expect Crosby to give everything in pursuit of the playoffs and, in the process, will break Gretzky’s record, too.

Alex Ovechkin will break Gretzky’s goal record, too.

The chatter surrounding Kris Letang might also pick up. It’s becoming painfully obvious that Letang has lost a step and is unable to do the very Letang things on which he’s built his career. He’s become a solid defenseman–when was the last time there was a social media uproar over a Letang mistake?

P.O Joseph’s mobility has compensated for Letang’s decreasing zip, but all sorts of chatter could start in the next phase of the season.

4. Here come the kids?

Rutger McGroarty, Ville Koivunen, Tristan Broz, and Owen Pickering will/should be in the NHL for a couple of weeks at the end of the season, which ends on April 17. The AHL regular season ends on April 19, but the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins are one of the best teams in the league and have a genuine shot at a real playoff run.

Will Dubas bring up the youngsters en masse for a couple of weeks, then send them back for a playoff run, or will he keep the troop together in the AHL?

Predicating part of that answer will be the Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff race. Filtering the prospects through the NHL locker room surely wouldn’t hurt, though teams are limited to just four regular recalls after the March 7 trade deadline (unlimited emergency recalls). However, the bigger part of the answer will be the logistics of protecting the NHL roster flexibility AND getting WBS set for a playoff run, which the organization greatly values as a learning tool.

The Penguins cannot and will not abandon WBS for a few weeks just to get players some NHL exposure.

Given the 23-player roster and tight salary cap, the recall limit seems like a dumb rule. There’s always something fun about September baseball when several or more prospects get their shot, but I digress.

Perhaps 2024 second-round pick Harrison Brunicke (44th overall) could play in the NHL, too, but it’s more likely he would play for WBS following the Kamloops Blazers’ season ends on March 22. Kamloops is in next to last place, so the playoffs are unlikely unless Brunicke is traded to a WHL contender.

Fellow 2024 second-rounder Tanner Howe (46th overall) is playing with the third-place Calgary Hitmen, so WHL playoffs may delay his arrival in WBS. The AHL regular season ends on April 19.

5. The Big Finish

If the regular season ended today, the Penguins would have the eighth-overall pick, pending the NHL Draft Lottery. None of the teams below them in the standings are a threat to make a run, but instead, the Penguins find themselves in that purgatory of junior varsity teams not bad enough for a good shot at the lottery but not good enough for a genuine shot at the playoffs.

The Penguins should finish about where they are, perhaps about 10th worst, in a tight battle with St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Montreal for the top-10 pick. Start learning names like Malcolm Spence (Erie Otters), Roger McQueen (Brandon Wheat Kings), and Eric Nilson (Djurgårdens IF J20).

5A. You?

The one thing we’ll not predict is how you’ll react to what we believe will be a less-than-explosive NHL trade deadline. Will Penguins fans show up to cheer the effort that you saw in New York and Philadelphia or bristle at the lack of wholesale changes?