Re-tool to Fix the Mess

Équipe: 2019-20 Penguins de Pittsburgh

Date de création initiale: 23 juill. 2019

Publié: 25 juill. 2019

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

Rutherford has done a decent amount of damage to this roster over the past couple of years. In my opinion, moves that show he is losing his touch as an NHL GM include: trading for Gudbranson's contract, moving out Kessel who is on a good deal when you are in win-now mode, signing depth players Johnson & Tanev to deals with huge terms. I think if the Penguins fail to do anything in the playoffs next season he could lose his job and the new guy will have to work hard to clear out some of the poor value money and quickly re-tool while Crosby, Malkin, and Letang remain elite. What remains this off season is getting Pettersson under contract and shipping out the cap space required to do so. Ideally when clearing out cap they should open up more room for next off season when they need to re-sign Murray, Galchenyuk, McCann, Kahun, Simon and perhaps Schultz as well but some of those required cap clearing moves will have to be addressed next year.

RFA's
Pettersson - Could be bridged as he has played only about 100 NHL games across three seasons. He had a good year last season and is improving, but there is already a lot of money tied up in mediocrity on the blue line in Johnson & Gudbranson so they may not be able to really give him the security of term to lock him into a good cap hit even if they might want to. I think a fair contract is 2 x $1.65M.
Edmundson - Comparable contracts in the 3-4 year range anywhere from 4.25-5.5% of the cap. I think the Pens ink him to a front loaded, signing bonus laden three years to keep the cap hit down a bit 3 x $3.65M. He's a good defensive defender, but likely won't improve much offensively.

Trades
Comments in the individual trades. Overall, I tried to fix the Johnson mistake (had to trade for another mistake who may bounce back in Pittsburgh), used forward depth to get a better defender, shed cap while not taking too big a step back with the move. I don't think Jarry makes it through waivers, so I think the Pens would be wise to get a pick/prospect to allow someone to jump the waiver queue to get him (I see San Jose moving on from Dell, Dallas getting a 3rd NHL caliber goalie to hedge against Bishop's injuries and having a 33 year old backup, or New Jersey or Florida getting him to compete with their young waiver exempt backup goalies).

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