Penguins free agency day one has come and gone The Penguins made a few signings, and an intriguing trade. No one notable left the roster and none of the RFA’s have signed a contract. Analytically, all of the signings look to be solid bets. Shea was allowed to walk, so too were Acciari and Clifton.
Penguins Free Agency Breakdown: Kuzmenko, Carlile and Van Riemsdyk
The Penguins did nothing to get noticeably better than last season, but it’s difficult to get noticeably better through free agency. Instead, the Penguins made solid bets to replace the players that left. Andrei Kuzmenko, once a 39-goal scorer, seems like the ideal bet to replace Anthony Mantha. Kuzmenko only cost the Penguins 5 million dollars, and for only one season. Rumor has it that Mantha will be getting between 6 and 7 million on a multiyear deal.
Declan Carlile, a relative unknown to most, signed for 2 seasons at 1.5 million. Extremely similar contract to that of Parker Wotherspoon. Analytically, they are very similar to each other too. Wotherspoon was older, actually had less NHL experience at the time of his signing, and was smaller (though he did play with a significant edge). Despite assistant GM Jason Spezza noting that Carlile is a Shea replacement, he could just as easily be a Wotherspoon replacement. The only curious decision yesterday was that Carlile happened to be the only true left side defensemen that Dubas chose to sign. Wotherspoon is likely going to get a Shea like extension next offseason, and the Penguins don’t want to commit term, and dollars, to players over 30. Finding a suitable replacement was a must.
They did break the trend of signing the younger/unproven, or reclamation projects, when they dished out a 2-year 8-million-dollar deal for Trevor Van Riemsdyk. However, similar to the players above TVR is an analytical darling. He also comes to town with a Stanley Cup ring. Also, while being right-handed he has, and can easily, play on his offside. My initial thought on this signing was the Penguins realizing the team needs a Brett Kulak replacement more than they need an apples-to-apples replacement for both Wotherspoon and Shea. TVR could slot next to Letang and have Letang’s game steady out similarly to when Kulak was the only guy to get the most out of Tanger last season.
Those were the three signings of impact that occurred for the Penguins yesterday. All of them seem to be simple replacements for someone they lost. Sure, you know the guys you had worked out well with the organization, and it’s a gamble to assume the players you signed yesterday will do the same. However, last season no one assumed the players signed by Dubas would help the team move forward. That is exactly why I don’t understand the sentiment going around Pittsburgh today. A lot of people seem to think the Penguins made stupid moves yesterday. A lot of people think we got appreciably worse. No one seems to have any memory of what occurred just last July.
I listen to Josh Yohe’s podcast, Two for Talking. It’s not a good podcast, and it rarely provides any useable information. Nevertheless, Yohe is the lead beat writer in Pittsburgh and on free agency day, he could provide a nugget of information that can used as a think piece. However, I had to turn it off after a few minutes of listening. Yohe’s cohost, Joe Bartnick, might be the most unintelligent hockey fan I have ever heard speak in my life. Last offseason he torched Dubas for all of his moves, including drafting Ben Kindel. He only cares about signing, and drafting, players who are big. That’s his only prerequisite for being a good hockey player. Despite torching Dubas last year, and changing his tune during the season, he was back doing the same thing yesterday. Yohe typically sits there and says nothing to disagree with his cohost. It bothers me because other Penguins fans likely listen to that show and don’t have enough knowledge to form their own opinions. When they hear a guy receiving no pushback from a supposedly well-informed Penguins beat writer, they probably believe that the Penguins are significantly worse today than they were when the season ended. While I don’t think they much better, I do know that Dubas knows what he is doing. If he didn’t everyone would have been correct in their assumptions that the Penguins were a trainwreck going into last season. Dubas didn’t stray from the script, he didn’t sign Mason Marchment (30 years old) to a 5 year 33.75 million contract. He didn’t sign Jacob Trouba to a deal at over 8 million dollars per season. Nor did he trade a decent young player for Darnell Nurse, with no retention. Those were all things Sharks GM Mike Grier did yesterday, and those are the type of moves that hurt your team in the long run.
As someone who has independent thoughts, I know the Penguins made good decisions yesterday. They might not work out, but in theory they were all solid moves. No one knows how players will gel with a new organization but that’s why Dubas doesn’t assign term, or significant dollars, to players entering the club through free agency. Dubas started his day off by making a move that might lead to the Penguins assigning significant dollars to someone coming to their roster. Right before free agency opened, the Penguins traded for Robertson. Not the Robertson you are likely thinking of, but rather his brother. Nick Robertson finally made his way out of Toronto when Pittsburgh traded them a 4th round pick in 2028. I love what Robertson provides, he is fast and can score goals. I love the intangibles he brings to the team even more than any goal he will score, and that would be his connection to coveted RFA Jason Robertson. It’s not difficult to assess that the Penguins are posturing to trade for Nick’s brother. They currently have too many players. Multiple players will need to be moved. We have noted how many right-side defenders the Penguins have signed, and the same goes for wingers. If you’re acquiring Robertson, players are going to be departing the roster as a part of the trade. The Penguins can now offer a combination of Karlsson, Brunicke, McGroarty, Rust, or Rakell. The signings and trades they’ve made in the past few days allow them to lose a couple of those listed players and not hurting the team’s depth at all. Even if Robertson resigns in Dallas, the Penguins will need to shed some bodies off of the roster. It could be simple moves, such as moving Brazeau. It could be something more extreme that sees a real asset leaving (like one of the players I listed for Robertson). No team is perfectly set in stone after July 1st, and that definitely applies to this Penguins team.
In a world where the Penguins don’t continue to make trades, I would then struggle to understand some of Dubas’ decisions. The roster is beyond full of NHL talent. Therefore, the Penguins have little room to allow the McGroarty’s, Broz’, Hayes’, Koivunen’s, Ilyin’s, or Zonnon’s to actually have a legitimate shot at making the roster. The plan has always been to continue to compete with the older core, while giving runway to the youth. As currently constructed, they might find a way to compete, but it won’t be due to an influx of youth entering the lineup. Even Harrison Brunicke might not make the team out of camp after the addition of Korczak in the Wotherspoon trade. For some of these players, and Brunicke is actually one of them, more marinating in Wilkes Barre is probably good. However, for guys like McGroarty they need to get a real chance to play in the NHL. I can’t imagine the Penguins want Rutger to spend another season as the team’s 14th forward; it does nothing for his development. That’s why I am all but certain that the Penguins will be making moves, but if they don’t the logjam that has been created is quite curious. Maybe the Penguins aren’t as high on some of the prospects as we thought and if that’s the case then they’d be wise to move off of them before the rest of the league finds that out as well.
No matter what happens throughout the rest of the summer, I believe that Dubas did well yesterday. I learned from my initial reaction last year, and I totally understand his decisions this time around. Apparently, a lot of Pittsburghers didn’t learn a thing from last offseason and will continue to spout off the same nonsense. Don’t be a fool and remember how wrong you were last season at your opinions when they added Wotherspoon/Brazeau/Mantha. They followed the same playbook this offseason, but that doesn’t mean you need to have the same outrage. The Penguins did good yesterday, more importantly they didn’t do anything catastrophic. We have three months for them to do more, and I fully expect more is to come. Even if they don’t, they added more wins above replacement than any other team in the NHL yesterday.
