Molinari: Some Trite, But True, Draft Advice for Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins have a lot of personnel needs to address before they reclaim a spot among serious Stanley Cup contenders.

Or even among the clubs that can make a legitimate run at a playoff berth.

Some quality centers to work behind Sidney Crosby, for starters. Defensemen, especially ones who can play the left side, to upgrade what might have been the worst unit in the league in 2024-25. A few bottom-six forwards whose appearances on the scoresheet are a bit more frequent than sightings of Halley’s Comet would be a plus, too.

But as pressing as those flaws on their depth chart are, president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas should not try to deal with them in the NHL Draft next week.

That’s because, unless Dubas trades up to the very top of the draft order, the Penguins are unlikely to get a prospect who will be NHL-ready without at least two seasons of college/junior and/or minor-league hockey.

By the time the player the Penguins select 11^th overall is ready to assume a spot on the major-league roster, the team’s needs might have radically changed, with voids that exist today having long since been filled via trades, free agency or prospects making their way through the system.

The prudent thing, then, is for Dubas to choose the player who is highest on the Penguins’ ratings board when it’s their turn to pick. That’s almost guaranteed to be someone who holds down a place in their top 10, since there rarely is a league-wide consensus about the potential of prospects after the first couple. (If then.)

OK, so there’s not much exciting or daring about the “take the best player available” approach, but the point of the draft is to collect the most valuable assets possible.

If the Penguins’ first-rounder turns out to be, say, a goal-scoring left winger, but the team already is getting satisfactory production out of that position by the time he gets to the NHL, it’s reasonable to assume there will be a significant market for his services.

Consequently, the Penguins could trade him – or one of the other guys who share his position – to acquire a player who could fill a hole elsewhere in the lineup.

Conversely, if the Penguins’ Round 1 choice is someone projected to eventually address one of the soft spots in the roster that Dan Muse will have to deal with in his first season running their bench, it might mean Dubas made a bit of a reach that could prove to be a costly gamble in a few years.

Projecting how teenaged hockey players will develop over a period of years is difficult enough; there’s no good reason for Dubas to lower the odds of the Penguins’ first-rounder ultimately having an impact as a pro by failing to pick, simply put, the best player available.

There is, however, one position that the Penguins should prioritize in the draft on an annual basis.

Or close to it, anyway.

For if predicting how 18-year-old forwards and defensemen will turn out is difficult – and it really is – accurately projecting the future for most young goaltenders can seem virtually impossible.

That’s part of the reason the Penguins should consider getting at least one in just about every draft, much as college football teams try to secure a quarterback in each recruiting class.

The goalie doesn’t have to be an early-round selection – the Penguins got promising goalie Sergei Murashov in the fourth round (118^th overall) in 2022 – but the washout rate at the game’s most important position is high enough that maintaining a steady flow of possibilities is important.

If a club is lucky enough to find itself with a surplus of NHL-caliber goalies, odds are that there will be another team out there looking for one. And willing to pay handsomely to acquire him.