Flavell's Five Thoughts: Penguins Season Has Plenty of Old, And New

It’s been a long offseason for the Pittsburgh Penguins after yet another one-and-done in the playoffs. 

Last season’s team held a 3-1 series lead over the New York Rangers until the real Louis Domingue showed his face and choked away all the goodwill he’d earned by coming off the bench in overtime of game one.

Domingue has since signed with the Rangers, a clear thank you on their part for allowing them to advance as far as they did.

Without making excuses, the Penguins spent the offseason adding some size to their blue line and some peskiness to their bottom six through the various additions of Jeff Petry, Jan Rutta, Ty Smith, Ryan Poehling, and Josh Archibald. At least three of the five-figure to be in Pittsburgh’s lineup Thursday night when they take on the Coyotes at PPG Paints Arena.

Gone from last season’s team are Evan Rodrigues, Zach Aston-Reese, Dominik Simon, John Marino, and Mike Matheson, amongst other smaller pieces.

The Penguins got bullied in their net front last season. That was no secret and the Rangers spent the entire season pointing out the deficiency directly to the Penguins front office. After years of deploying strictly smooth skating, talented offensive players, the front office went out and got some sandpaper.

Much of the core remains intact despite some initial doubt on that front. Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin’s contract negotiations became a bit more contentious than the organization likely would’ve preferred but were eventually smoothed over to ensure they’ll finish their careers alongside Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh.

Rickard Rakell re-signed to play in the Penguins’ top-six. Bryan Rust, Jake Guentzel, Brian Dumoulin, and Tristan Jarry, all long-time Penguins in their own right, return to form one of the better cores in the NHL currently. However, the Penguins are the league’s oldest team so that will be something to monitor over the next seven or eight months.

Now that you’re all caught up on the Penguins’ offseason, we can begin to discuss some thoughts I’ve got on the Penguins going into the 2022-23’ season.

Because of Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang’s otherworldly preparation, their age decline shouldn’t be very rapid. Evgeni Malkin has enough sheer talent that, even if he does begin to decline, he’ll be a good player. The core will perform and the rest of the team will follow suit.

But how about all the new faces?

Smith was acquired from the Hurricanes. Petry and Rutta came over from the Canadiens. Rutta spent the last three seasons playing all the way into the Stanley Cup Finals with Tampa Bay. Archibald played eight games for the Oilers last season.

Smith seemed poised to start the season alongside Rutta on the Penguins third pairing but a salary cap crunch gave that spot to P.O. Joseph.

Petry will essentially take Matheson’s spot next to Marcus Pettersson on the Penguins’ second pairing. Last season was the worst he’s had recently but the Canadiens were a horrid team for most of the season and his numbers were resurrected late in the season after Martin St. Louis took over as the Habs head coach.

Poehling and Archibald currently stand as the 12th and 13th forwards on the roster. Both played in Friday night’s preseason finale where the Penguins played their full complement of players. Teddy Blueger is currently out with an injury but practiced on Sunday and hopefully will play Thursday. That would revert one of Poehling or Archibald to the press box.

With a handful of new players in the system, the Penguins may not come out of the gate flying high and winning games. However, the overall makeup of the team is the same so seeing how the new guys fit in will be worth watching.

We’ve seen Tristan Jarry become one of the more consistent goalies in the league during the regular season. He’s become a rock for the Penguins in the blue paint. Unfortunately, he’s left much to be desired when the games really matter.

His position on the Penguins’ goaltending depth chart was a question heading into last season after the meltdown against the Islanders in the 2020-21’ postseason. He made the all-star game for a second year in a row last season to quell the noise a bit.

But he ended up being injured a few weeks before the postseason last year and returned for game seven at well less than 100%. The Penguins were eliminated so he never had the chance to get back to full health and perform for his team.

Jarry is entering a contract year and, while the Penguins surely appreciate his regular season success, they aren’t going to lock him up for term and dollars if he can’t prove that he’s exercised his playoff demons. Assuming he isn’t signed before the season, it will be interesting to see how his unsettled contract status affects his on ice performance as well.

The best thing for all parties involved would be for Jarry to again be a steady regular season goalie and then help the Penguins win at least one playoff series to ensure that he can, in fact, be relied upon as a franchise goaltender.

The Penguins have eight NHL defensemen that played regular minutes in the big leagues last season. Joseph is the lone exception but seems NHL-ready and just hasn’t had the chance to break the lineup.

As it stands, Joseph will be next to Rutta on Thursday night unless a trade occurs. That would mean Smith and Friedman would start the season in the AHL even though they are both NHL-caliber players. That is certainly a good problem to have especially when the Penguins seem to be injury-riddled year after year on the blue line.

What I do find interesting is that the new regime doesn’t seem as sold on POJ as Jim Rutherford’s management team obviously was when they acquired him for Phil Kessel. Joseph then winds up getting the sixth spot on the blue line.

Hextall’s very first move as general manager was to claim Friedman from the Flyers, a team where he reportedly ended up being a locker room cancer. Upon his entry into the Penguins locker room, Friedman fit in perfectly and even served as a pest that would always seek out a teams’ biggest player and ensure they weren’t going after the Penguins’ stars. He’s well liked in the room and very much deserves to be part of the team based on his play.

Then there is Ruhwedel.

Now one of the longest-tenured Penguins, Ruhwedel shows up to the rink night in and night out and stays under the radar while doing all of the right things. As it stands, he is the Penguins’ seventh defensemen. He serves no purpose in the AHL because he is a veteran who rightfully doesn’t deserve to be in the minors but he also seems like an afterthought when the Penguins have two young former first-round picks and the gritty Freidman.

I know that there won’t be many times where all nine are healthy at the same time so everything eventually will work itself out. But the first few weeks will be very telling on how the organization views their depth chart with all of these defensemen.

Quite possibly the most head-scratching move Ron Hextall made this offseason was the re-signing of Kapanen.

I think it’s no secret that Mike Sullivan, along with the organization as a whole, was frustrated with Kapanen’s performance last season. So they decided to give him $3 million per year and sign him to a deal that binds him to Pittsburgh not only for this season but next season too.

Still only 26, it’s possible that Kapanen hasn’t yet scratched the surface of his talents that are clearly there. He’s got the wheels to play in Sullivan’s system as he can skate with anyone. His problem is the effort and the lack of awareness to use his speed and carry the puck to the net instead of pulling up and taking the equivalent of a Steph Curry 40-footer. The difference is that Curry hits that shot. Kapanen doesn’t.

When considering that Evan Rodrigues signed in Colorado for $2 million and thinking about how the Penguins might’ve been better off allowing Kapanen to walk and giving Rodrigues a deal for $1 million less, it makes the decision a tough one.

If the Penguins are going to pay Kapanen that kind of figure for the next two seasons, he’s got to be put to work on the penalty kill, a trait he actually excelled in with Toronto before he was traded back to Pittsburgh.

Of course, maybe Kapanen becomes the goal scorer the Penguins believe he can and the contract becomes a bargain. But until that becomes a reality, the decision is a curious one. Kapanen will be a third-liner with the potential to play in the top six if the Penguins run into some injuries but he has to score way more often for that cap hit to make sense.

I give Zucker all the credit in the world for gutting it out in the playoff series against the Rangers. He clearly wasn’t 100% as evidenced by his modified stoll at the end of the bench. Yet, he was giving 100% and was among the Penguins’ best forwards in the series.

His Penguins’ tenure has been a mixed bag. He gets hurt way more often than you’d like to see for someone with a $5.2 million cap hit. But when he is on the ice, you see the effort. You see the passion. You just don’t see the same goal scorer that he was for Minnesota.

The days of Zucker scoring 30 goals are probably behind him. He can still get off a good shot and be a 20-goal scorer if he stays healthy. He’ll be playing on Evgeni Malkin’s left wing and he’ll have Bryan Rust on the opposite wing, with Rickard Rakell likely bouncing into that position when Sullivan feels the Crosby line gets stale.

He’s a great compliment to Geno and he’s a guy who doesn’t mind getting his star center the puck and getting out of the way.

If we see a healthy Zucker that plays in 70+ games, I really believe he’ll be a 50-60 point player alongside Malkin and Rust/Rakell. If the Penguins top-six takes a hit then his numbers will likely be below that threshold but his health would solidify a Penguins top-six that could make them a threat deep into the postseason if the ancillary pieces perform.

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