GMs Pull Back; One Free Agent Makes Sense for Penguins

The lake houses are calling. Margarita machines and breathing easy for a few minutes before the suffocating grind of the 2024-25 NHL season begins and the pressure mounts. One year ago, new Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas extended the offseason drama into August with the Erik Karlsson trade that didn’t reach completion until Aug. 6.

There is not the same push this summer. Dubas will neither spend the future assets that he did to acquire Karlsson nor tie the team to big-money, longer-term contracts.

At this point in the free agent frenzy, there aren’t any big-money, long-term veterans remaining on the market. NHL GMs dished out over $1.2 billion on momentarily unemployed hockey players, and even franchise cornerstones Steve Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault found themselves hiring moving vans and Googling housing prices in Nashville.

We’re already at the end of the NHL free agency line.

“I don’t think there’s a lot (more more activity). I think most teams are just buttoning up the last player or two in their lineup,” Nashville Predators GM Barry Trotz told TSN Radio a few days ago.

The Penguins are in the same position. The lineup is likely full already, but there is one more free agent they should be targeting, and it’s for the same reasons Dubas took a run at Vladimir Tarasenko before the winger got a second year and more money from the Detroit Red Wings.

The Penguins’ lineup still needs a bit more offense. Unless Valtteri Puustinen or Kevin Hayes has a 20-goal season lurking inside them, the Penguins need top-nine scoring. They also need at least one insurance policy against an injury in the top six. In Dubas’s current roster construction, if any of Drew O’Connor, Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Michael Bunting, Evgeni Malkin, or Rickard Rakell is injured, there is not a suitable long-term substitute.

That also means if any of the wingers grow colder than a Winnipeg wind, as Rickard Rakell did in the first 20 games last season, coach Mike Sullivan will not have a good option to elevate a player into that spot.

The Penguins need one more free agent, and the only one left who merits consideration as a player capable of filling the necessary roles is … drum roll, please … Tyler Johnson.

Johnson, 33, is not over the hill or breaking down, but his lengthy free agency bodes well for Dubas’s strategy of signing players to merely one or two-year deals. He also has a pair of Stanley Cup rings earned in the shortened seasons with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Johnson is small (5-foot-8, 185 pounds), but he makes up for it with speed and hockey IQ. He can score 20 goals on the wing or pivot a middle-six line.

Not unimportantly, his leadership with the Chicago Blackhawks youth movement was roundly lauded by all. The Penguins are on the precipice of a youth movement and could have a couple or more in the lineup by the end of the season. Johnson is a ring-winning leader who can keep the top of the lineup accountable and commune with the kids, which isn’t a bad thing, either.

Last season, Johnson had 17 goals and 31 points in 67 games, his third campaign with the Blackhawks, and the numbers tracked similarly with his 2022-23 season, too.

The free agent options are akin to finding water in the desert. Kailer Yamamoto had a 20-goal season beside Connor McDavid in Edmonton in 2021-22 but has just 18 goals in 117 games over the last two seasons. Like Johnson, Yamamoto is small, but unlike Johnson hasn’t shown an ability to consistently put the puck in the net. Yamamoto’s Seattle Kraken had the fourth-worst offensive output in the NHL last season, and he was an unfortunate part of that failure.

Daniel Sprong, 27, is the other free agent who has a 20-goal season on his PuckPedia.com page, but Sprong’s lack of complete game has forced coaches in Seattle and Detroit to keep his ice time to fourth-line levels. The Penguins’ 2015 second-round pick has been well-traveled after former Penguins GM Jim Rutherford traded him for Marcus Pettersson (at the time, Pettersson was a depth defenseman).

Sprong has played for Anaheim, Washington, Seattle, and Detroit in the last five seasons.

James van Riemsdyk and Max Pacioretty will be 36 years old and did not have productive 2023-24 seasons. If there is another Penguins move to be had, only Johnson makes good sense. Beyond the trio of names, because the UFA market is bereft of scoring talent.

If Dubas wants to improve the Penguins lineup this season, there’s one choice left.