Six Penguins With Most to Prove This Season

Pittsburgh Penguins will join the NHL with training camp opening league wide in just a few weeks and the first preseason games will be played just shortly after that. The NHL is just around the corner despite feeling like the Colorado Avalanche took the league by storm not too long ago.

The Penguins will play their first preseason game on September 25 at Columbus with the first television broadcast coming a few days later on October 1 against the Buffalo Sabres. In just over a month, the regular season will commence.

With the regular season comes another chance for the Penguins to win one final Stanley Cup in the Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin/Kris Letang era. It will be a grind because the Penguins are, by no means, a top-three roster in the NHL. But they can get the job done when it truly matters.

Certainly, though, a handful of players have a bit more to prove than others on the team and they’ll have to perform to stick with the Penguins going forward.

Dumoulin was never a top-tier prospect in the minor leagues. He had some pedigree and was seen as an NHL player, but no one could’ve expected him to anchor top pair minutes on multiple Stanley Cup teams and have the longevity he has in that role. But that’s exactly what he’s done.

When he was traded from Carolina, Dumoulin spent some time in the AHL before a handful of NHL games across the 2013-14’ and 2014-15’ seasons. His permanent NHL chance came the following year and he never looked back.

Now, entering this season, the 31-year-old is at a crossroads. He enters the final year of his six-year contract he signed prior to the 2017-18’ season. He has had some health issues over the past few seasons that seemed to get the better of him last season. Dumoulin’s ever-so-steady defensive presence wasn’t the same. He didn’t play the same shutdown defense that he has over the life of that contract and it looked as if the lower body injuries may have slowed him a step.

The Penguins even broke up the Dumoulin-Letang pairing for a stretch replacing Dumoulin with the since-traded Mike Matheson.

Dumoulin will likely open the season with Letang but his play must return to the level he was at in previous years if the Penguins are going to entertain bringing him back to be alongside Letang for the rest of their respective careers. Otherwise, the Penguins will be in the market for a Dumoulin replacement and he’ll be hitting the open market looking for a new home at a not-so-free-agent friendly age.

Another player entering a contract year, Jarry has been one of the steadier regular season goalies in the NHL since he took over the Penguins net in 2020-21’. He’s made the all-star game in both seasons and has a 2.55 goals against average, a .915 save percentage and six shutouts in that span.

Where the questions about Jarry arise is come the postseason.

I think it’s fairly likely the Penguins will make the playoffs for an 18th consecutive season assuming none of their big guns get hurt for an extended period of time. Jarry likely will go a long way in helping the Penguins get there. But he has to perform and be available for the Penguins to win and essentially put faith in him to be the franchise goaltender for the next 5-10 years.

Last season, he spent the final three weeks, and first six games of the playoffs, watching from the press box with a lower-body injury. He returned for game seven and wasn’t 100% but played admirably well for not seeing game action in over a month. The year before, Jarry melted down against the Islanders and cost the Penguins a series in which they were clearly the better team.

If they had so much as a decent goaltending performance out of Louis Domingue, the Penguins would’ve made the second round and who knows what would have happened from there.

Jarry’s regular season performance warrants a top-tier goaltending contract but he’s got to prove he is durable enough and can shake the demons from the Islanders series and perform for the course of a playoff run. Otherwise, he’d likely see a small bridge deal or even a new uniform for the following season instead of the nice paycheck that he could cash with a solid playoff performance.

Joseph is 23 years old and just earned himself a two-year deal in the offseason that should ensure his role on the Penguins for at least this season and next. However, the Penguins shipped John Marino to Carolina in the offseason and acquired another young defenseman in Ty Smith. Smith provides the one true young competition for Joseph.

Smith is still exempt from waivers, however, so Joseph may win the job by default unless Smith badly outplays him. That is why Joseph must prove himself 100% this season.

He was a first-round pick in 2017 and likely would’ve been full-time in the NHL already had it not been for the lack of injuries/opportunity on the parent club. He’s looked solid in his cameo appearances the past two seasons and provides a tall, yet lanky frame but can handle the puck on the offensive side and is responsible enough away from the puck to have himself a nice NHL career.

Considering he was traded for Phil Kessel, a two-time Stanley Cup champion I might add, the organization would love to finally see some return on investment from that trade. Joseph will have that chance this season if he can stay healthy and hold off Smith throughout training camp.

Everyone remembers McGinn’s season last year by his lone mistake in game seven when he coughed up the puck and took the penalty that led to the Rangers’ series-clinching overtime goal. That’s unfortunate because McGinn enjoyed one of the finest offensive seasons of his NHL career.

Ron Hextall signed McGinn on the opening day of free agency prior to last season. The signing was met with some confusion as to why the Penguins would sign a bottom-six player to a four-year deal, especially one worth just south of $3 million.

In a season where the Penguins didn’t receive a lot of secondary scoring, McGinn pitched in for 12 goals and 22 points. The 12 goals were the second most of his career and his 22 points were the most since 2017-18’. He played a pivotal role on a penalty kill that ranked among the league’s best for the vast majority of the season. It was a rather solid season ruined by an average playoff performance.

For a cap-strapped team like the Penguins (and seemingly every other contending team in the NHL), McGinn has a contract - $2.75 million AAV - that would provide some cap relief if traded. He will likely have to prove to Hextall and Co. that he can overcome the adversity from the playoffs and can be an impact bottom-six player or he could be shipped out during or after the season.

With the Penguins’ cap situation, there is a good chance the Penguins could turn to O’Connor to fill a spot on their fourth line come opening night. Even if he doesn’t make the top-12 forwards to open the year, it’s a good bet that he would be the extra forward the Penguins carry with them.

O’Connor isn’t a big-time prospect but he was very good in the AHL last season and has shown flashes of being a good NHL player. He scored 19 points in 20 AHL games following his collapsed lung that cost him his first true chance as an NHL regular.

However, in his few stints at the NHL level, O’Connor’s offensive production hasn’t matched his AHL production. O’Connor has three goals across 34 NHL games, including the playoffs.

As a bottom-six player, that kind of production won’t give O’Connor much opportunity to stick with the Penguins.

Looking at the current collection of Penguins forwards, it seems O’Connor will, at the very least, be the Penguins 13th forward with a chance at cracking the opening night lineup. If he wants to stick, O’Connor needs to score a bit more often if he wants to stay in the NHL in a consistent role.

At 6’6”, Zohorna is one of the bigger bodies in all of the Penguins’ system. The Penguins are a team that has lacked size and toughness for a few seasons now so it’s a surprise that Mike Sullivan has given “Big Z” a chance to even play for the NHL club given his penchant for avoiding the physical game.

The problem with Zohorna is that he doesn’t seem to use his big frame to his advantage. He isn’t the fleetest of foot so his size needs to be used to offset that. Zohorna has a nice shot but doesn’t bring much in the way of offensive skill. He does have four goals across 25 NHL games without a consistent presence in the Penguins’ lineup.

However, Zohorna is 26 years old and just got his start in the NHL. If he doesn’t make an impression sooner rather than later, there is a good chance that he could be passed on the organizational depth chart. It isn’t like the Penguins are bursting at the seams with NHL-ready prospects, but there are some guys that the Penguins would surely like to get a look at if someone like Zohorna can’t leave his mark on management.

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