The dressing room currently has far too many name plates for too few stalls. The Pittsburgh Penguins have a crowded house and a general manager who has not yet shed depth veterans, productive veterans, but continued to add them in advance of the great turn toward youth that has loomed over the organization like a rolling storm shelf peeking over the Appalachians.
The great Penguins trades have not yet happened. Nor have the little ones.
Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas made clear in his first months on the job that he was not afraid to waive veterans, and if the team lost them to another, so be it. Wish them well and move on. However, there are currently more veterans than could be waived and appropriately rehomed with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
The Penguins remain a collision of youth and veterans. Still, this time, the situation is self-inflicted as Dubas adds older players on heavier salaries in exchange for the draft picks that other teams sent along with them.
3 Bold Predictions Before the Start of the Penguins’ Season
1. Patience Tested
Dubas will have to put one or two young players in the AHL to await their turn. He won’t be happy about it. The players surely won’t be happy about it. However, our gut feeling is that the runway that Dubas needs to shed a few of the veterans without eating up their salaries and the valuable salary retention slots will be longer than he would like.
Teams with playoff aspirations will suffer injuries, get off to poor starts, or realize some of their off-season moves failed to add the necessary carbonation to the soda and need some help. The Penguins will be the easy phone call.
Players such as Kevin Hayes, Noel Acciari, and Danton Heinen will be easy to acquire, but it might take until November.
In the meantime, Tristan Broz seems like the obvious candidate to get the short end of that stick. Filip Hallander, too. And there’s always a surprise contender who has a big-time preseason, perhaps Rafael Harvey-Pinard gets a bus ticket he didn’t deserve, either.
2. The Rickard Rakell Trade
The trade surely would not surprise anyone as it seems to be the dragging issue of the NHL off-season, though it has earned far less fanfare than might be expected for a 35-goal scorer.
Dubas is under no pressure to deal Rakell as he has three more seasons remaining on his five-year contract. However, Dubas’s rebuild also does not benefit from a middling team, which it very well might be with all of Rakell, Bryan Rust, and Erik Karlsson still with the team.
With rookies Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen set to join the NHL fun this season, and free agents such as Justin Brazeau joining hopeful Philip Tomasino in the battle for premium ice time, we predict that Rakell is traded before the season, but the steep return Penguins fans are expecting will be met with ice-cold reality and some disappointment.
We also believe Rakell is a valuable commodity who is being undervalued by GMs around the league. However, we don’t get a say in the matter, and the trade return will send some fans to screaming fits on social media.
3. Erik Karlsson is Not Traded
In a less-than-ideal circumstance, a 35-year-old player who wants to win will indeed be stranded in Pittsburgh a little while longer. A few trade rumors will pop up here and there, but the appetite to take on Karlsson’s contract and unique game is not great.
As an analytics-friendly GM, Dubas sees the numbers value of Karlsson and won’t admit defeat. Combined with Karlsson’s preference for specific situations and locations, which greatly limits Dubas’s options, there may not be a change to the status quo.
As Aug. 1 approaches and vacations begin, this seems more likely to drag into the season and further complicate the Penguins’ overstuffed right-side defense corps, which currently stands at six deep.
4: Matt Dumba/Jack St. Ivany
Dumba was one of those veteran acquisitions made not for the player but for the affixed draft pick: a second-round choice. Dumba has not been the dynamic rising star for a handful of years, but he makes $3.5 million for one more season. He is a prime candidate to pass through waivers, clearing a spot for either Harrison Brunicke or Jack St. Ivany.
St. Ivany is no longer waiver-exempt, so he will need to make the team, or there is a real chance another team would claim him via waivers. Dumba will be the first to go, but will another follow? Connor Clifton would seem to be somewhat safe as the team acquired him via trade at the 2025 NHL Draft.
