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Rakell Poised to Cash In On Free Agency … But Where?

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Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell, NHL trade

Rickard Rakell has only been a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins for a couple of months.

He probably thinks a Pittsburgh Left refers to the wing where Mike Sullivan deployed him on occasion.

But even though he appeared in just 19 regular-season games and two others during the playoffs after being acquired from Anaheim at the March 21 trade deadline, Rakell insists that he’d like to hang around a while longer, even though he’s on the cusp of unrestricted free agency.

“This is definitely a place I would like to come back to,” he said. “And where I think I can take my game to the next level, as well.”

That the Pittsburgh Penguins — who sent Zach Aston-Reese, Dominik Simon, goaltending prospect Calle Clang and a second-round draft choice to the Ducks in exchange for Rakell and Anaheim retaining 35 percent of his salary-cap hit — would like to retain him is indisputable; whether they will have the cap space required to make it happen is far from certain.

Rakell, 29, has been working on a six-year, $22.8 million contract that has an annual average value of $3,789,444.

Ron Hextall acknowledged Monday that building his roster for the 2022-23 season will be complicated and involve numerous moving parts and changing scenarios, and made it clear that trying to re-sign Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang will be his primary focus.

That doesn’t preclude reaching contract agreements with other players — witness the deal Bryan Rust accepted Saturday — but Hextall likely will be reluctant to commit too much money to them if he believes those resources might be required to land Malkin and/or Letang.

“I know this organization has a lot of free agents to take care of,” Rakell said. “I’m just going to see what happens.”

Rickard Rakell Performed

Rakell put up four goals and nine assists in those 19 games after joining the Penguins, working on both wings and primarily on the top two lines. Although he has a solid offensive pedigree, he averaged just 95 seconds of power-play time, nearly all of it with the No. 2 unit.

He had 16 goals and 12 assists in 51 games with Anaheim before being traded and called his time with the Penguins “a great experience for me. I think I’ve learned a lot from a lot of great players and coaches here.”

Rakell did not get a point during the playoffs, when he appeared in just two games. He got an unspecified head injury on a hit by New York Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren late in the first period of Game 1 — Lindgren was assessed a roughing minor — and did not get back in the lineup until the series finale.

All told, he logged just 18 minutes, 52 seconds of ice time against the Rangers.

Being without Sidney Crosby for part of Game 5 and all of Game 6 and not having Tristan Jarry until Game 7 clearly contributed to the Pittsburgh Penguins failing to get past New York, but the series was close enough — ultimately, New York needed an overtime goal in Game 7 to advance — that Rakell could have tilted it in the Penguins’ favor if he hadn’t been injured.

“Everyone battled hard in every game.” he said. “It felt like it could have gone either way.”

Which, at least for now, also seems to be the case for whether the two sides can find a way to bring him back to the Penguins for next season.