Penguins Grades: Can New Coach Save Ryan Graves?

There was little doubt that Ryan Graves had another bad season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and there is even less doubt that the general manager who signed him to a six-year contract has some buyer’s remorse.

Penguins GM Kyle Dubas has implied on more than one occasion that he’s disappointed with Graves’s play, but now there is a clean slate behind the Penguins’ bench, and perhaps Dubas and Graves will get the same clean slate.

This season, Graves went beyond 40 games before registering his first point. There was press box time and lineup demotions to the third pairing, but Graves’s work was only marginally better than his first painfully unsuccessful season with the Penguins.

Graves Buyout? No

Starting at the beginning, Graves was the big, mobile defenseman signed to replace left-side Brian Dumoulin, who appeared to be aging poorly. Graves was to fill Dumoulin’s spot beside offensive spark plug and risky defender Kris Letang.

Easy peasy. Dubas jumped quickly, signing Graves to a six-year deal with an average annual value of $4.5 million on July 1, 2023.

That was probably the best day of Graves’s Penguins career, as the situation has soured, and Graves’s future with the club is in doubt, despite the onerous contract.

The unlikely route of using a buyout would hamstring the Penguins for eight years. If that sounds even remotely tenable, try to imagine your life in 2033–that’s when the buyout penalty would end.

But to satisfy curiosities, should the Penguins buyout Graves during the short June window after the Stanley Cup Final, he would cost about $2.4 million next season (saving about $2.1 million), followed by three seasons that his contract would gobble up between $3.4 and $3.65 million (saving $1 million and less), followed by four more seasons in which his contract would cost the team over 645k.

It doesn’t get any better if the Penguins wait until 2026, either.

In other words, the Penguins are stuck and would save more money in years two through four of the buyout by simply stashing Graves in the AHL. The player might prefer a buyout, but the cap-alytics favor simply taking the loss for a few more years.

Compounding the limited options, his calamitous two seasons with the Penguins and lengthy contract have nullified any trade value unless Dubas affixes premium assets to complete the deal. That’s a no-go, too.

Unless …

A new coach could save Graves?

Player analysis

Graves 2024-25 Grade: F

After a little bump in November and December, Graves regressed to one of several troublesome parts of the Penguins’ lineup, especially on the blue line.

Read More: Ryan Graves Checklist: New & Improved, Or Problem?

The word “unplayable” was published by a colleague, and it was hard to disagree.

For the first time in Graves’s career, he played less than 1000 minutes (941). He also put up career-worst offensive totals with just one goal and three assists in 61 games, and his 63 giveaways were both an astounding number given his limited usage and a career worst.

When Graves was on the ice, the Penguins garnered only 31% of the goals scored, thus allowing opponents to claim 69% of the tallies. That number was not only a career worst for Graves, but also staggeringly bad.

Unfortunately for all, Graves has lost his confidence with the Penguins, and it was all too easy to slip back into the tentative, soft play that dogged him in his first season.

The checklist of issues is an unkind recitation that reads more like a bitter ex: Soft in the defensive zone along the walls. Large gaps. Not enough net-front battle. However, it’s in his puckwork that we might best diagnose the mystery of his decline.

No Mystery Machine needed.

Graves was slow with the puck, especially out of his own zone. Sometimes glacially slow, which allowed forecheckers to pounce. Directionless chips off the glass, turnovers, or stifled possession followed.

One issue beyond Graves’s individual performance was former head coach Mike Sullivan’s system, which gave defensemen more options. For D-men like Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson, options are a good thing. Even for poised defenders like Marcus Pettersson, the system was a plus.

Former Penguins defenseman Erik Gudbranson long ago raved about the three tiers of options for defensemen. He felt it unlocked his game and freed him from a previously constricting system that put him on his heels.

For Graves? The options and layers of options were poison.

The 6-foot-5, 220-pound defenseman was perfectly suited for the regimented system that his former team, the New Jersey Devils, deployed under coach Lindy Ruff. His job was to defend, then move the puck from A to B, and B was a constant.

There were numerous read-and-react scenarios within Sullivan’s system, not only in the defensive coverage but also in the breakout. Even teammates quietly conceded his difficult adjustment. After two years, it wasn’t going to happen, but there is a little hope.

One avenue of escape for all involved is simply improvement. The Penguins and Dubas must surely hope that whoever next occupies the spot behind the Penguins’ bench can lift Graves’s confidence, as well as put Graves into a more fitting system.

Or Graves very well might be the highest-paid player on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins roster.