Penguins pitch NHL 2022 off-season plan

Penguins pitch NHL 2022 off-season plan

Penguins pitch NHL: Today we continue our NHL offseason plan series exploring the Pittsburgh penguins who are the 12th ranked team from the NHL’s regular-season standings what do we expect from them this offseason will some of their big names like malkin lasting will they be back or is it the end of an era we’ll discuss the possibilities coming up next [Music] welcome back to another video here at top shelf

hockey as i mentioned today we’re continuing on with our NHL offseason plan series we’re now a 12th-ranked team in the NHL’s 21-22 regular season the Pittsburgh penguins now in case you’re new to this series as well what we’re going to basically do is we’re going to do a quick recap of the 21-22 season uh take a look at some key team stats and metrics to see how things went we’re

going gonna explore their salary cap space to see where things are at what do they have on the books for contracts how much money do they have available and then we’re gonna explore their expiring contracts who are and who needs to be resigned or replaced and then lastly in the last segment we’re going to look at their top burning questions facing this

franchise or the top priorities that need to be addressed this offseason so let’s get started with a 21-22 season recap of course we know the Penguins qualified for the playoffs finished third place in the metropolitan division with 103 points and unfortunately lost in the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs against the new york rangers in seven games they did have a three to one series

lead but the rangers came all the way back winning the last three games to uh take this in seven it was a bit of a devastating loss but i think it’s fair to say the injury to Sydney crosby um in that series which would have been i think was game four i believe it

was or game four game five was the turning point for sure and you know obviously at that point uh the rangers seemed to take over and the penguins just never were able to get back now they did finish with a record of 46 25 and 11 last year so they had um to me it was a bit a little bit of a surprising season a lot of people predicted them to take a step back i know i did as well and this

team this continues to defy the odds defy the you know the aging veterans there and they just continue to uh be competitive and win and just really be one of the the league’s better teams uh it’s really quite remarkable when you think about it they ended up scoring 269 goals this year for the 11th best offense in the nhl so again another strong performance there they’ve been one of the

league’s better offensive teams in recent years goals against was especially good only allowing 222 which was the fifth ranked defense in the nhl so that certainly uh was a you know a really surprisingly good stat the power play was very respectable but not overly elite at 20.2 percent 19th best in the nhl and the penalty kill was at 84.4 which is exceptional in the nhl anything over 80 is

kind of what you’re aiming for ideally if you can even be close to 81 you’re usually in the top you know five to ten teams and they hit 84 which is third-best in the Penguins pitch NHL which was an absolutely awesome result of course we saw the penguins make some changes throughout the season they certainly made some additions thinking they had a good chance to win uh they added some players

like a ricard raquel at the trade deadline and unfortunately uh you know they did still lose in the first round which was their fourth consecutive year losing in the first round now let’s take a look at this salary cap space that they have to work with and what their contract status is going into next year courtesy of catfriendly.com here you can see that for 2223 they have 16 Penguins pitch NHL contracts

already on the books which takes out 59.29 million dollars of salary cap space leaving them with 23.2 million dollars, that is available but that’s a lot of contracts they have to take care of obviously 16 contracts you normally carry 22 23 players and you know even then some of the guys they have to look after are significant and could have some big-ticket items either way that

money quite quickly if they bring everybody back now let’s jump over and take a look at their expiring contracts and who needs to be looked after here who are their rfas and ufas for this off season on the restricted for region side they have caspari Capitan and Danton Heinen now i think that you know both these players had you know okay seasons Casper captain unfair to say it was a bit of

a disappointment though i do think both players would get a qualifying offer and in the case of Kaepernick i do kind of wonder what the future holds for him i don’t think the penguins would be complete um you know against making a trade there possibly obviously the ufa side is way more interesting including long time franchise players of guinea malkin and crystal tang they’re by far the two most interesting pieces here on this list and we’ll have to discuss some of it further in the next segment they also have UFA

forwards ricard raquel brian Boyle Evan Rodriguez who had a bit of a surprise breakout season defenseman nathan boliviu goaltender Louis doming and another backup goaltender here casey de smith so lots of interesting options presented in front of the Penguins pitch NHL this year based on these contracts, of course, brian ross what about on this list here as well but as soon as the season was over a few days after they did come to terms on a six-year agreement re-signing brian russ to keep him in the fold so he was

another one that was certainly a big question mark here coming down the stretch into the beginning part of the Penguins pitch NHL off-season now let’s take a look at the top burning questions or top priorities facing the penguins this offseason by far the biggest question is the future of chris le tang and evgeny malkin there is no doubt they have some tough tough decisions to make here now recent reports from nhl insiders such as Elliott Friedman suggest that contract negotiations have not gone well with either

player that at one point i know even rob rossi who covers the penguins directly for the athletic uh has made mention that both players were offered three-year contracts which would basically match up with the remaining term of cindy crosby’s contract that all three players could essentially expire at the same time and they would use that three-year window to continue to try to be

competitive and see what they could do if they could possibly win another stanley cup or you know continue to go forward every year basically as long as these three players are all you know continuing to play well and apparently those offers so far have been

rejected they haven’t been worked out but i know in the case of milk and he appeared to be open to a three or four year contract to expire with crosby i think it was more about the money i mean he’s making over nine million dollars right now and it’s believed

that both these contracts were somewheres in the neighborhood of three years at five million per season so around 15 million bucks and that’s not enough now in the case of malcolm it’s believed he will take less money than his current contract um but at the same time it’s gonna have to be more than five and when it comes to la tang who’s making seven and a quarter million right now uh many believe that he wants the same money or more because he’s coming off a career season and obviously the last few

years after he battled a lot of health issues in the past has been proven that he can remain healthy and be extremely productive and to be honest i think if latang hit the open market he probably could get a bigger contract than what he’s making here today

and it wouldn’t surprise me if he could get a five-year deal which is what he said he was looking for at least looking to play five more years i know crossfit even talked about this where malkin said he want to play at least three more years like crosby and la

tang said when he was asked he said he was looking to maybe play another five which would i believe uh you know put them put him into like around as early 40s i believe so uh certainly you know some tough tough questions are facing the penguins here with these two all-time players i mean I think deep down they’d love to see crosby malcolm and latang all play for one team and retire

as Penguins pitch NHL but it’s going to be tricky i mean certainly like i said they have the money that they could offer bigger money to malcolm and la tang but that’s really going to hinder what they can do with the rest of the team and if they can’t do anything significant with the rest of the team it’s difficult to say how competitive they would be next year now certainly um it’s like i said it’s believed that malkin is going to probably want i’m going to say at least up around seven probably based on what things you’re .

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saying or being reported at and lutang’s looking at probably you know at least seven if not you know maybe closer to eight i don’t know like that’s just sounds like roughly what it’s going to take to get something done so time will tell but the future of these two guys is uh you know questionable at best many feel that there’s a good chance that one of them leaves and depending on who you

ask i see case for both some feel that latanga’s gonna be able to demand a bigger contract given his contract or his career season story and he’s been healthy and playing extremely well um so that you know he can probably cash in one more time and that might be too rich for pittsburgh so people think that uh malcolm’s more likely to come back he’s certainly had his fair share of missed time hasn’t played a full season like a decade or more um you know and maybe he’s gonna be easier to keep because the

price tag will be a little bit cheaper um and then there’s some who think that latang’s more important because you know without him on the blue line the blue line’s in pretty rough shape right so i don’t know um in regards to that if which side you think but i many feel that one stays in one go so if it comes down to that who do you think goes and who do you think remains a penguin now when the goalies uh it’s believed that it’s you know there’s a good chance that the ming and smith aren’t coming back and it’s

believed that there might be interest to bring back marc-andre fleury for the right price of course to work with tristan jerry next year so could we see a return of the flower to pittsburgh i mean jerry will be back but i don’t think they’re going to be going with these same guys they had as the the backup so we’ll see what happens but uh they’re going to probably need somebody new and there’s been a lot of talk that he has interested come back it’s just a matter of the penguins making sure that that i guess uh the

interest is mutual and can they agree on money and you know he does have interest to stay in minnesota as well but i think that’s gonna be a lot more challenging for the while to pull off so boils down to what fleury will take for a contract but could he return to pittsburgh many think it’s a real possibility now there is also belief that we could see some changes on the blue line outside of what happens with crystal tang uh guys like brian dumoulin and marcus pedersen certainly struggled in the playoffs there’s been some

talk about a marcus pedersen trade for a long time now um so it wouldn’t be shocking to see them maybe try to shake things up in that regard as well um and can i get a different mix back there on the blue line up front too i don’t i think they probably would like to move jason zucker but that’s going to probably be a tough contract to move he’s you know about a lot of injuries and hasn’t

been as productive as he could be or what he you know would probably like to be so that’s going to be challenged uh so i don’t know that it would be really easy to do but i know there is belief that that might be another contract they might be open to moving

uh in order to free up some money along with a golly casper captain and he’s been very inconsistent and hasn’t found that extra gear that they thought he would find after getting more opportunity um that he was getting with the leaks when he came over in

that trade so we’ll see what happens but i think we could see a bit of a shake up in the forward group with guys like zucker and kaepernick being the most likely targets if they can do it on the back end like i said maybe a pederson new goalie coming in to work with jerry which could be flurry and then could malkin or le tang not be in the mix next year it’s certainly a real possibility and only time will tell but they do have some big questions in pittsburgh is it the end of an era a lot of these decisions are going to

be based on new ownership and fenway sports group and how they feel about things certainly uh you know it’s been challenging for sure getting to kind of understand their philosophy and what their vision is for this team there was reports that they had uh ron

hexdall the general manager outlined a vision for them in written form as well um and you know there was even some talk that we could see changes within the management group but considering he just resigned brian rust and there hasn’t been anything

announced here as of yet um i don’t think we’re going to see that uh obviously i suspect that burke and hexdoll will remain at the head of hockey operations for the penguins and we’ll see what they do here but i do wonder what kind of a leash you’ll be on given uh you know like in fact there’s new management they’re given that there’s new ownership since new ownership typically almost

likes to have their own people in place it’s a pretty common practice so time will tell what happens but i would think it’s going to be a pivotal off season for this team we could see a major shift in what this team looks like but at the same time it’s possible they might be able to get creative enough to keep a lot of the core pieces in place keep the band together and continue to make runs

here to see what they can do it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility it’s just going to be really challenging and we’ll see what happens so let me know your thoughts on this pivotal off season for the penguins in the comments.