The Penguins needs changes. Kyle Dubas was brought to Pittsburgh to make them happen. They will, eventually. He will need to assess the contract values of the players on his roster in order to diagnose where those changes should happen.
Today, I am going to sort through the players who are under contract for the 2023-24 season and see what their AAV’s are versus what their market value is. I am going to use Dom Luszczyszyn’s article to set the base lines
Here are what the baselines look like:
For this I am going to take things straight down the middle and use the average. The next thing I had to do is choose which players are in what category. Sidney Crosby is the only franchise level player on here at forward. Evgeni Malkin is still great, but there are 46 players who had a point per game last season so I have him as a top line player. Kris Letang remains in the franchise tier. Even in what you could consider in off year he still is deployed as a franchise defenseman and looks the part. Overcoming the death of a parent and a stroke were definitely taken into consideration. Pierre-Olivier Joseph played a lot of top four minutes. I don’t think he necessarily exceled in them so I have him as a bottom pairing player.
Here are how each individual player stacks up against their average league value
I don’t think there are a lot of surprises here. I think the Penguins get really solid value out of the upper tier of their roster. Bryan Rust had a down year in production. His underlying numbers point to getting some better results next year. The top six, as we knew, isn’t the issue.
Jeff Petry sticks out on the defense in a bad way. I think he was, fine. I was expecting a little more, but he was fine when he was in. I also think going into the season we knew he was overpaid and he is. He’s paid like a top pairing defenseman when he is clearly a middle pairing guy. When you zoom out and remember the Penguins moved John Marino to create this roster spot for Petry it really highlights the cost of acquisition in both cap hit and asset(s). Still, Petry will give OK minutes albeit overpaid. Every roster in the league has something along these lines. The issue is you have to make up for it elsewhere and Hextall failed miserably there.
Marcus Pettersson, the guy Hextall wanted to trade in the offseason, is one of the Penguins better value contracts at the moment. This in theory makes the Petry contract a wash. Jan Rutta is slightly overpaid for what he is and when looking to cap savings you want to shed the overpaid bottom of the lineup players. I would just use Chad Ruhwedel, Mark Friedman or Ty Smith and allocate Rutta’s money differently.
As for the depth forwards Mikael Granlund is a top nine guy getting paid like a top six guy and will not provide value. Granlund is a likely buyout candidate. Jeff Carter is a fourth line player (or worse) being paid like a third liner. Alex Nylander has potential to provide some slight value and given what I saw of him last year. I think it is more possible than if you asked me before the season last year. I think he did a nice job with his minutes in 2022-23.
There are only three forwards under contract for the bottom six next year and many people, myself included, want to replace two of them. Among skaters I think the bottom six is going to be a focal point for the new regime. There’s a real chance to make improvements. The Penguins have 20.21M in cap space heading into the season. It is the eighth most in the league. One of Dubas’ strengths is finding functional depth players who exceed their AAV valuations. This is where the Penguins can claw back and become somewhat relevant again. By relevant I mean having the ability to win playoff series and if the PDO swings the right way go on a run like the Florida Panthers did. I think there’s still a time line where that can happen, given that Dubas does the things he has done well in the past.
With some creativity and a well-crafted plan of attack the Penguins do have the chance to revamp what was a very underwhelming and boring product. You just need to value things appropriately.
Thanks for reading!
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