Penguins In The Market For Defensive Depth

Entering the season, the Penguins had a logjam on defense. Despite a couple of in-season additions already in Brett Kulak and Ilya Solovyov, it’s largely cleared out.

Caleb Jones hasn’t been a factor all season due to injury and now a PED-related suspension. The Matt Dumba experiment is over, and he’ll play out the rest of the season buried in AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. “Veteran” depth pickups Sebastian Aho and Alexander Alexeyev were waived to begin the season and haven’t seen any NHL ice. Top prospect Harrison Brunicke was returned to his junior team.

Then, in the days leading up to the Olympic break, injuries piled up. Jack St. Ivany, who’d emerged as a great bottom-pairing shutdown option over the last few months, fractured his hand and won’t be back until late March. Kris Letang is dealing with a fractured foot, too, although he’ll be back by the trade deadline.

Still, those surgeries (and apparently some nagging injury concerns with Erik Karlsson) have the Penguins in the market to add another defenseman before March 6, Josh Yohe of The Athletic reports. That body would presumably be a righty with Pittsburgh’s top three on the right side, Letang, Karlsson, and St. Ivany, comprising their current injury concerns.

It’s likely one of the first places they’d go for depth is San Jose. The Sharks have plenty of rental names available that won’t be overly expensive, namely Timothy Liljegren. A reunion with Vincent Desharnais, who the Penguins had for a 10-game run last year before flipping him to the Sharks for a fifth-round pick at the deadline, is logical as well.

With Letang and Karlsson already in the picture, it stands to reason Pittsburgh won’t be looking for an offense-oriented defender as depth. A plug-and-play, more well-rounded option like Liljegren seems preferable. Among potential rental options across the league, there’s Ottawa’s Nick Jensen and Winnipeg’s Colin Miller out there as well.