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Mailbag: Expansion protection, potential goaltenders, and long pants hockey |
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Things are slow at the moment as the non-playoff teams are in a holding pattern as the final four plays out in the playoffs. Given the lull I reached out to you for questions and here they are
Is that Dougie Hamilton’s music? I half kid about it because if the Penguins really wanted to pony up the 8-9M per year there are certainly players they could move on from, but let’s live in the more realistic realm. The Penguins are in a unique position where they don’t have three defensemen who are must protect players. It is really only Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin. They could hypothetically add another defenseman of note and use that third spot to protect them. However, the calendar probably doesn’t lend itself for this even coming into play unless the Penguins trade for somebody. The expansion draft is pegged for July 21 and the NHL Draft and free agency are both afterwards. I suppose the Penguins could do a sign and trade deal with another team’s pending UFA or make a hockey trade before then. Regardless, the Penguins aren’t in a horrible spot for the expansion draft (yes they might lose a bottom six forward) especially on the defense front.
I’m hoping it is higher to be honest. Not because I think Pierre-Olivier Joseph will be a difference maker, but because the team needs him to eat up bottom pairing minutes if they are going to be able to allocate money elsewhere on the roster. Joseph’s ELC contract is like a unicorn right now because the Penguins a devoid of having any playable ELC’s. If Joseph can play on the bottom pairing role after the team moves on from either Pettersson or Matheson it will free up money for other areas on the team. I don’t like the idea of having ~12.5M tied up on the left side of the defense and Joseph could potentially be part of the solution in getting away from that.
When I find some motivation to comb through the entire goalie landscape I’ll have a more in-depth look at the goalie position, but Linus Ullmark is a player who I have thought about multiple times as an option for the Penguins. It isn’t easy being a goaltender on the Sabres which is all Ullmark knows at the NHL level. He is a career .912 goalie in 117 career games including .917 in 20 games last year. He will be 28 next season so it isn’t like you are getting a younger player here. He is coming off a 2.6M deal and probably would rather not return to the Sabres given *waving arms around* everything going on there. If you really wanted him you could probably give him something in the 3.5-4.0M range and he’d be glad to sign. You might be able to get something done close to the 3.0M range. He’s certainly one of the reasonable priced options out there, but like nearly all goalies no guarantee.
As for Jarry the recency bias is going to slaughter whatever perceived trade value he has. The goalie market is weird so who knows. I want out of the Tristan Jarry business, but do the Penguins? Here’s another goalie question
Short answer is yes. Lehner has a large sample size (320 games) and is a .918 goalie. He is 29 and has four years left on the deal which would be his 30-33 years at a reasonable 5M considering his body of work. What that trade looks like I don’t know, but I would certainly be intrigued.
I think the Penguins (Burke) have already hinted at the Penguins wanting to find some players to fill the long pants they want to use. Burke has also spoken about “ugly” hockey. Hockey GM’s love nothing more than to try and copy whatever teams go on a playoff run. Personally, I think the Penguins should keep investing in the speed and skill approach because they are closer to being good at that then they are revamping everything and trying to be that long pants team. Finding useful players who are big is a lot costlier and the Penguins aren’t exactly shopping with a full wallet.
It’s also important to remember the Penguins aren’t going to recreate a couple of the situations of teams remaining in the playoffs. Tampa is literally over the salary cap because of the Kucherov shenanigans. I don’t fault Tampa at all for this, but the reality is the Penguins aren’t going to bench Malkin for 82 games in a full regular season and have him come back to the playoffs. Vegas is an expansion team which every team bent over backwards to help out during their inaugural summer. You aren’t replicating that roster building. Do they want to try their hand at being the Islanders? Are you hiring Barry Trotz? Because if not... Also, the Islanders would be watching on TV if not for Tristan Jarry being embarrassingly bad. That leaves the Canadiens and I don’t see the Penguins getting to play in the North Division next year with the easiest path to the final four. It doesn’t seem like an ideal year to play copycat with the other teams left in the playoffs because of all the unique situations at play.
75% for Zucker, 50% for Pettersson, 10% for Matheson because of the contract.
Tristan Jarry, Matt Murray, Jack Johnson, and Barry Trotz.
Lastly, new podcast on Jack Eichel and Dougie Hamilton
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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