On Friday the NHL marketplace swings wide open and teams will be allowed to pursue UFA's. The landscape of the NHL will change over the next month much like it did at the NHL draft. How busy will the Penguins be on this front?

They won't be very active for a couple of reasons.

The first is a good problem to have. The team really don't have a need to go shopping because they have a fairly complete roster already. Even if Ben Lovejoy and Justin Schultz move on They will still have Ian Cole and Derrick Pouliot in a bottom pairing role. Even with Beau Bennett's trade or a potential Matt Cullen retirement the Penguins still have a lot of young forwards competing for a roster spot.

The second variable is even if Pittsburgh had a want to go shopping they don't have any money left to do anything significant. With Marc-Andre Fleury's 5.75M still on the books Pittsburgh has about 2.9M left in cap space. That number is what you get once you take Dupuis' LTIR off the books and also include a roster with 13 forwards, six defensemen, the two goalies, and Rob Scuderi's salary retention. Here is an updated look at their money situation with the knowledge that we are working with a 73M cap.



It is wise to keep wiggle room with the cap and not spend all the way to the ceiling. If the Penguins do make a signing it is probably limited to the 1-2M range. Pittsburgh could always move a salary out to sign a new player, but I'm not so sure there are any values that make sense for them to do so at this juncture. If a player like Matt Cullen decides to come back the Penguins have the option of sending down Oskar Sundqvist's 700k cap hit which is included in my calculations already.

Ben Lovejoy is as good as gone. He is going to maximize his value which has never been higher. He should do just that. The Penguins can't start paying a "Stanley Cup tax" that has gotten the Blackhawks and Kings into trouble in recent years. Justin Shultz will not be qualified by the Penguins. They can still look into signing as he will be a UFA. Looking over the defense market he will probably find interest from other teams. Will his cap hit stay in the manageable 2M range? That is where it needs to be for the Penguins in order for it to make sense. Another dynamic of signing Schultz is that you would be blocking Pouliot yet again from getting regular ice time. There are one of two things that need to happen in 2016-17 with Derrick Pouliot. Either he needs to play nightly or the team needs to move on from him. It is pointless to devalue the asset further like Edmonton has done with Nail Yakupov.

Leaning on unrestricted free agency to improve the roster is usually a losing endeavor. A majority of the time the big ticket items are being paid for past performance. Pittsburgh is in a good spot heading into July 1st this year not having a need to go heavy in this area. Any improvements the Penguins will need should come from trades or internal development. The only two players on the Stanley Cup roster that were acquired via unrestricted free agency were Matt Cullen and Eric Fehr. They were good signings but they also totaled less than 3M annually. The Penguins have been built through the draft and trading and they should stick with that approach.

It is exciting to track free agency signings it just won't be Pittsburgh creating the excitement.

Thanks for reading!

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