2023-24 NHL team preview: Pittsburgh Penguins

Credit: © Charles LeClaire

LAST SEASON

To say that the Penguins 2022-23 season was disappointing would be an understatement. The signs were there after an underwhelming offseason that saw them move on from two excellent defensemen in John Marino and Mike Matheson and only get Jeff Petry and Ty Smith to fill the void in both of those trades along with Jan Rutta in free agency. It just wasn’t a significant enough change for a team that had struggled to make any playoff noise in the previous few seasons, so there were a lot of doubts already.

After a 4-0-1 start, the Pens dropped seven games in a row, and that was the start of a very streaky season for them. Losing streaks of four and seven games balanced out two winning streaks of five and seven with them going .500 otherwise heading into the trade deadline. If they wanted to improve, some moves needed to be made.

And who did the Penguins add? Mikael Granlund, Nick Bonino and Dmitry Kulikov. Not exactly a list of gamebreakers to help make a playoff push. With the roster still mired in mediocrity, Pittsburgh went 9-10-2 after the deadline and, as a result, missed out on the playoffs by one point. That ended a 16-year postseason streak and marked only the second time in the Sidney Crosby era that the Pens have missed the playoffs. Change was needed after that disastrous ending, so gone were GM Ron Hextall and president Brian Burke, and in comes Kyle Dubas to fill both roles.

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Reilly Smith, RW
Erik Karlsson, D
Rem Pitlick, RW
Matt Nieto, W
Alex Nedeljkovic, G
Ryan Graves, D
Noel Acciari, C
Lars Eller, C
Radim Zohorna, F
Magnus Hellberg, G
Vinnie Hinostroza, W
Andreas Johnsson, W

DEPARTURES

Jeff Petry, D (Det)
Casey DeSmith, G (Mtl)
Mikael Granlund, C (SJ)
Jan Rutta, D (SJ)
Josh Archibald, RW (TB)
Nick Bonino, C (NYR)
Drake Caggiula, C (Edm)
Brian Dumoulin, D (Sea)
Dmitry Kulikov, D (Fla)
Ryan Poehling, C (Phi)
Dustin Tokarski, G (Buf)
Jason Zucker, LW (Ari)

OFFENSE

Nothing quite encapsulates the disappointment of the 2022-23 Penguins season more than their offensive results. They ranked 16th in the league in goals per game with 3.18, 19th in 5v5 goals per 60 minutes with 2.57, and yet they were third in 5v5 expected goals per 60 with 3.18. Having the second-worst 5v5 shooting percentage will certainly cause that, as the team just couldn’t buy a goal outside of their top six. While Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Rickard Rakell, Jason Zucker and Bryan Rust all scored at least 20 goals in the top six, no one else had more than 13, and only three hit double-digit goal totals. That’s just not the kind of finishing ability you want surrounding your elite core if you strive for Stanley Cup contention.

The Penguins lose one of those 20-goal scorers in Zucker, but they manage to replace him with Reilly Smith for their top six, and Erik Karlsson should definitely provide an offensive punch on the back end. Beyond that, Pittsburgh’s offensive talent doesn’t look much different than what they had last season in the bottom six. The players are a bit more of a strategic fit for Mike Sullivan’s system, but they also fit the all-defense, no-offense mold of player that Dubas always looked for in Toronto, which is what caused the Leafs’ depth scoring to dry up over the years. Perhaps the Pens spread out that top six among three lines to manufacture some depth like they did with Crosby, Malkin, and Phil Kessel on their three lines during the Cup wins in 2016 and 2017, but otherwise they still lack the finishing ability they need to be true contenders.

DEFENSE

The Penguins’ defense last season was also very mediocre with a 19th-ranked goals against per game (3.21) and 5v5 goals against per 60 minutes (2.62). But unlike their offense, there weren’t any underlying numbers suggesting it was due to bad luck, as they were tied for 21st with a 2.76 expected goals against per 60. That wasn’t entirely due to their drastic change on defense, as Rutta, Petry and Ty Smith all performed at least well enough to stay afloat, although it probably didn’t help that Marino and Matheson had excellent seasons with their new teams. Instead, it was due to a lack of defense from the top six forwards, as they had to overcompensate to produce the only offense the team could generate, and as a result they had underwhelming defensive results.

Dubas always did an effective job of bringing in forwards that were consistent defensively, and he did that again this offseason with the likes of Matt Nieto, Vinnie Hinostroza, Noel Acciari and Lars Eller, but none of them is necessarily a player who could be deployed in the top six to solidify their defense. The Penguins did make a switch in the top six by adding Reilly Smith for Zucker, but Smith’s defensive ability isn’t up to par either. Basically, if they want to fix this issue, they best hope that a few of the players can return to form defensively and carry the load, because it’s slim pickings otherwise. The defense should be solid even if it technically downgrades defensively by adding Karlsson, but if the top six is as bad defensively as they were last season, it could keep Pittsburgh out of the playoffs again.

GOALTENDING

The Pens goaltending neither saved their season nor hindered it, more so just existing and falling to the whim of how the team played in front of them on each particular night. They ranked 13th in the league in team save percentage with .9163, while Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith found themselves in the middle of the pack in terms of their performance. They had a .909 and .905 SV% respectfully, but that was more due to the team in front of them, as they found themselves with positive 5v5 goals saved above expected with 1.12 for Jarry and 9.11 for DeSmith.

DeSmith moves on to Vancouver, but Jarry returned to Pittsburgh after going to market as a free agent, signing a five-year contract, so the Pens should get a similar performance in net so long as Jarry can remain healthy. Dubas filled out the goalie depth chart behind Jarry by signing Alex Nedeljkovic and Magnus Hellberg in free agency. Nedeljkovic will likely be the backup since he has the pricier contract of the two and also has the most upside of the two. His two seasons in Detroit were certainly ones to forget and he was eventually demoted to the AHL, but his rookie season with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2020-21 also showed how good he can be. Considering that Nedeljkovic’s best season came behind one of the league’s best defenses and his worst seasons came behind one of the worst defenses, it shows that if the Pens can play even just mediocre defense in front of him, he should be passable and make for a solid backup goaltender behind Jarry.

COACHING

Usually when a team underperforms, the general manager gets one or two coaching fires before they end up on the hot seat. In Pittsburgh, it seems to be the other way around, as Mike Sullivan has survived two GM firings with the Penguins without anyone doubting his job security. That should say a lot about how good of a coach he is and how the team is confident that he isn’t the problem, and it’s with good reason. The Pens are 337-187-65 in Sullivan’s eight seasons behind the bench, and while they haven’t won a playoff round since 2018, they’ve at least been consistent as they rank fifth in 5v5 expected goals share in those eight seasons. Maybe it reaches a point where the Pens think they need to move on from Sullivan, but with how much the players still seem to respect him, it’s likely that the team will ride out Sullivan until at least the big three are gone.

ROOKIES

The Penguins have only made four first-round selections in the past decade, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find out that they don’t have much of a prospect pool to work with. It makes sense why they haven’t been worried about it, as they’ve exhausted all their draft and prospect capital into winning Crosby, Malkin and Letang more Stanley Cups. In fact, it’s more surprising that they didn’t use their 2023 first-round pick to add to the current team instead of using it to draft Brayden Yager instead.

Yager could be a name to keep an eye on among the Penguins rookies that might make an impact this season, as he has the highest upside by far among Pittsburgh’s prospects. But at only 18, it’s more than likely that Yager spends another year or two developing, assuming he doesn’t get traded in that time span. Owen Pickering is another intriguing prospect, but he also could benefit from a bit more development before providing more of an impact for the Pens.

Among their more developed prospects, Valtteri Puustinen and Samuel Poulin are names that could finally break through onto the Pens roster. Puustinen was great in the AHL last season with 59 points in 72 games, but the fact that he didn’t get a look in the NHL might mean that Pittsburgh doesn’t know where he fits in their roster right now. Poulin has the name brand as a former first-round pick, but hasn’t lived up to the hype just yet. If he can unlock his game at the NHL level, he might add some punch to the Pens bottom six offense, but at 22 the window for that potential is closing.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. Will Erik Karlsson continue his success from last season? Karlsson was easily the Penguins’ biggest addition in the offseason, and coming off his 101-point season, the expectations for him will be very high. But will he be able to maintain that play in 2023-24? Injuries plagued his time in San Jose, and he struggled to produce like his usual self when Brent Burns was there in a similar role to Karlsson, so it’s possible that the issue could pop up again with Kris Letang. Dubas bet big with this addition to improve the team, so if Karlsson returns to that form of his early Sharks career, that could cause a lot of problems.

2. What will we see from Pittsburgh now that Kyle Dubas has full autonomy? When Dubas was let go from his GM position with the Leafs, the biggest storyline was his lack of autonomy in Toronto and how he always needed to get decisions approved by several higher-up members. He doesn’t have to do that in Pittsburgh, as he has full control over the hockey operations side of the Penguins as both the GM and President of Hockey Operations for the team. Will that allow them to become a better team, or will Dubas show us why some of his decisions needed to be vetoed in Toronto?

3. Will Pittsburgh win another Stanley Cup in the Crosby/Malkin/Letang era? It’s no secret that the Penguins have zero intention of rebuilding or retooling while Crosby, Malkin and Letang are on the team, as they want to give them every remaining chance to win the Stanley Cup. But is this team capable of such a feat at this point in their career? They haven’t won a playoff series since the Washington Capitals ousted them in the second round of the 2018 playoffs, and with the main core getting older and little talent coming through the prospect ranks, it’s going to be a lot harder than during the prime years of the big three.

PREDICTION

This Penguins roster is far from their Cup-winning days, and it’s hard to see them winning one this season unless the big guns play like their prime selves. But that doesn’t mean they can’t make the playoffs and possibly make some noise. They barely missed out last season with bad shooting luck, and made big changes to the roster this offseason, so it’s easy to see how they take a couple steps forward. Still, it is an aging core, and the East has a lot of teams that could challenge for a spot that didn’t even make the playoffs last year, so it won’t be easy. I’d say they stay in contention until the final days like last season, and my unwillingness to bet against Crosby has me thinking they’ll sneak into a Wildcard spot, especially with Karlsson joining the fold.

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