The State of Penguins; Projections & How Rivals View Offseason

It’s the division. According to Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas, the first measuring stick is comparing his team to its division rivals because that’s where playoff berths and success begin.

And that is how we’ll judge the current state of the Penguins.

It seems simple enough. A team must beat its divisional rivals to make the playoffs, and it must beat them in the playoffs. So, taking stock of the Penguins’ offseason necessarily must be put into the Metro Division context and against the presumed wild-card contenders, such as the Detroit Red Wings.

Skipping the top two teams in the division (New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes), the primary competition has been busy.

• The New Jersey Devils‘ big adds include new coach Sheldon Keefe, goalie Jacob Markstrom, as well as top-four defenseman Brett Presce.
• The Philadelphia Flyers are still in the midst of a rebuild, but they pried extremely talented 2023 seventh overall draft pick Matvei Michkov out of Russia and cleared cap space by buying out Cam Atkinson.
• The young and improving Ottawa Senators fixed their biggest flaw by adding former Vezina-winning goalie Linus Ullmark and stable defenseman Nick Jensen but dealt away defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
• The Washington Capitals added Chychrun, goalie Logan Thompson, struggling but former 35-goal scorer Andrew Mangiapane, and embattled center Pierre-Luc Dubois, whose addition may be a positive or negative. However, the other additions are a significant cut above anything the Penguins added.
• The just-about-ready Detroit Red Wings retained Patrick Kane, signed Stanley Cup winner and consistent scorer Vladimir Tarasenko, as well as offensive third-pair defenseman Erik Gustafsson. Detroit also signed goalies Cam Talbot to be a starter and Jack Campbell to a bargain, reclamation deal.

Penguins Perspective

The Penguins have Sidney Crosby, Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, and Bryan Rust. They are four players still at the top of their game and producing at levels largely befitting the best in the league. The core is superior to the competition, but it’s the supporting casts that make the difference, and there the Penguins seem to be in the most trouble.

OK, Karlsson didn’t have a great first season with the Penguins, but his year seemed emblematic of the team’s confusion and frustration; what should have been was decidedly not. It seemed that the more the team talked about doing the right things, such as defending leads and scoring power-play goals, the more difficult those essential tasks became.

If not for the frantic rally to the finish line, the Penguins would have ignominiously earned a top-10 draft pick and finished with the bitterest taste since 2006.

With a bit more than $10 million space to play with approaching the July 1 NHL free agent frenzy, Dubas first acquired Kevin Hayes so that he could also have St. Louis Blues’ 2025 second-round pick and traded winger Reilly Smith for the Rangers’  2027 second-rounder.

Hayes had a career offensive year in 2022-23 with 54 points, but has otherwise been in the 30-point range for since 2020.

The team’s first free agent signing was defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, a 32-year-old polarizing defenseman in Boston and the subject of healthy scratches last season. Dubas followed that signing with journeyman winger Anthony Beauvillier and several depth signings.

Sometimes, the picture is clearer from a distance.

Detroit figures to make a strong challenge for a playoff spot this season after battling to the final days to end their eight-year playoff drought. The Penguins and Detroit will again be in direct competition for the same wild card spots.

Detroit Hockey Now beat writer and Hockey Hall of Famer via the Elmer Ferguson Award, Kevin Allen, views the Penguins thusly:

“This is a team with four aging stars who can still play at a high level. But they are not as dominant as they once were, and the Penguins’ depth is eroding severely. The foundation and support beams have weakened. Since the days of Mario Lemieux, the Penguins have been known for dynamic offense. But they also possessed a commitment to bear down defensively when that was required. But the power to reinvent themselves as a full-service team at crucial times of the game doesn’t seem to be there anymore. They don’t have the weapons they once had.”

It was a common theme to note the Penguins’ lack of depth, specifically because Dubas has not greatly boosted the bottom of the lineup and the natural decline of the stars.

No one views the Penguins as better today than they were even a few months ago, and the outlook from those who cover Metro Division rivals was no better.

Our Philadelphia colleague Jon Bailey didn’t pull his punches:

“This would’ve been a great team a decade ago, but inconsistent goaltending, an underwhelming blueline, and an old, slow bottom-six that lacks skill will keep the Penguins out of contention. It’s nice that the Big Three will remain competitive in their twilight years, but the fatal flaws of this roster were exposed long ago.”

Ouch.

The Penguins’ acquisition of Hayes so they could add the second-rounder remains a move that could benefit the future but probably won’t help the immediate.

“The team’s stars would have to stay healthy. Hayes would have to have the best season of his career. It doesn’t feel like that will happen,” Allen said.

And for good measure, we also asked James Nichols, who faithfully covers Metro rival, the New Jersey Devils, about the Penguins outlook:

“The roster doesn’t scare me like it used to. From the Devils’ perspective, this is a team that I can see having strong goaltending if Tristan Jarry is healthy in tandem with Alex Nedeljkovic. However, too much of the roster is aging and seemingly past their prime. My head tells me never to count out a Crosby-led team, as the captain shows no signs of slowing down … With no significant additions and a major subtraction in Jake Guentzel, my gut tells me the Penguins will miss the playoffs for their third straight season.”

Penguins Lineup

Cutting to our analysis of the offseason, the Penguins’ lineup has taken at least two significant steps backward. Replacing Guentzel with Drew O’Connor had surprisingly poor numbers late last season. While O’Connor is a valuable member of the roster, it’s a different task to play on the top line. The other step backward is likely replacing O’Connor on the third line with Beauvillier.

It is unlikely to be an upgrade if coach Mike Sullivan swaps Lars Eller for Hayes in the middle of the third line.

The Penguins maintained their goaltending tandem by giving 1A goalie Alex Nedeljkovic a million-dollar raise to stick around with starter Tristan Jarry. The pair had one of the best save percentages in the league until the swoon in February through mid-March.

Defenseman P.O Joseph surprisingly left via agency when he signed with the St. Louis Blues, leaving a unique void in the Penguins lineup. While his season, if not career, was full of dizzying extremes, his play on the top pairing with Kris Letang in the final couple of months was justly lauded internally and externally.

Can Grzelcyk or Ryan Graves, who was also the subject of late-season healthy scratches after flubbing his debut Penguins season, fill the same spot? The best answer to that question is no better than a definite maybe, but both will be counted upon for full-time duty with only depth defender Ryan Shea waiting in the wings.

Adding another year to the odometers of Letang, Malkin, Karlsson, and even Crosby, with a weakened supporting cast and a rebuilding prospect pool, the easy projection is that a 2025 lottery pick is more likely than a postseason appearance.

Of course, the offseason isn’t officially over yet, either.