The Pittsburgh Penguins are yet to see a pop of offense from their bottom two forward lines.

Not many will disagree that the Pittsburgh Penguins needed to revamp their bottom six forward group following an extremely lack luster performance in 2022-23.

Thankfully, finding new faces for that area of the lineup was one of Kyle Dubas’s top priorities when joining the Penguins front office.

During his first offseason with the team, Dubas added quality depth like Matt Nieto, Lars Eller, and Noel Acciari.

Names like Vinnie Hinostroza and Andreas Johnsson were also added as lineup hopefuls, but ultimately lost out at the end of camp.

A late addition to training camp in Jansen Harkins finalized the Penguins bottom six with a third and fourth lines that looked like this:

Drew O’Connor – Lars Eller – Janson Harkins
Matt Nieto – Noel Accirari – Jeff Carter

Overall, that’s not terrible; there’s a good mix of speed and defense, along with a veteran presence in Jeff Carter.

There is one issue, however, no one strikes as a scoring threat, and through three games only Lars Eller has recorded an assist between each of these names.

Despite the lack of scoring, head coach Mike Sullivan praised the work of the bottom six and expressed hope for scoring to come.

“I think they’ve played well,” Sullivan said. “They’re hard to play against. They get a lot of defensive zone starts against our opponent’s top lines. They’re a big part of the penalty kill and they’ve all done a good job in that regard.”

In fairness to that group, they have done good work in keeping the puck out of their own net so far to start the season.

Even with the fourth line getting hemmed in their own zone for multiple minutes in back-to-back games, they’ve kept themselves out of the minus column.

At some point soon, though, they do have to find the net and become scoring threats.

“I do think that they’ll score goals,” Sullivan said. “They’ve had a fair amount of scoring chances; it hasn’t gone in the net for them.”

The Penguins want to be a team that can roll four lines and have a chance of scoring on each one.

If they can’t get that from their bottom six soon, something will have to change.

“We’re going to need them to produce offensively,” Sullivan said. “If we’re going to become the team we want to become.”

Guys like Hinnostroza and Alex Nylander could easily supply offense, but they’re starting the year in the AHL.

The scoring within the bottom six needs to wake up soon; the top two lines can only carry so much of the load and there are guys in the minors who could bring much more upside.

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