- The Penguins have shown interest in Sabres defenseman Robert Hagg, reports Josh Yohe of The Athletic (subscription link). Cap space will be an issue for Pittsburgh with all of their current space coming from Jason Zucker who’s on LTIR but will return next month but if Buffalo is able to retain half of Hagg’s $1.6MM AAV, his cap hit would be just above the league minimum which is something they should be able to afford.
Penguins Rumors
Vancouver Canucks Have Expressed Interest In John Marino
- In the 32 Thoughts segment of Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman added another interesting name to the trade deadline discussion: John Marino. Friedman mentions Marino as a potential option for the Vancouver Canucks, who are searching for an impact defenseman. Friedman adds, however, that the Pittsburgh Penguins very much like Marino and would certainly prefer to keep him. The idea of trading Marino might seem misplaced, especially with the Penguins sitting in second place in the Metropolitan Division, however Vancouver could utilize one of their forward assets such as J.T. Miller or Brock Boeser to try and acquire Marino from Pittsburgh. Even if the young defenseman could bring the Penguins a player like Boeser, Marino is signed through the 2026-27 season at a very reasonable $4.4MM per season, something the salary-cap-mindful Penguins may not want to part with.
Pittsburgh Penguins Extend Drew O’Connor
The Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they have signed forward Drew O’Connor to a one-year, one-way contract extension. The contract keeps O’Connor with the team through the 2022-23 season and is worth $750,000.
O’Connor has been a nice find for the Penguins, who signed him out of Dartmouth College in March of 2020. After O’Connor initially signed, he did not get a chance to play a pro game, as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was just days away at that point. However, O’Connor did break out as a professional last season, splitting time between Pittsburgh and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre of the AHL. While O’Connor only had one point in 10 games in the NHL last year, he did have an impressive 19 points in 20 games in the AHL as a first-year pro.
O’Connor has continued his development nicely this season despite once again being moved up and down between the NHL and AHL rather consistently. The 23-year-old has handled the adversity well, scoring three goals to go with two assists in 22 games at the NHL level, along with seven goals and seven assists at the AHL level.
The contract represents strong value for the Penguins, who can retain a developing talent that should be able to stick in their lineup next season, while providing flexibility with a cap hit of just $750K. Being a one-way contract, O’Connor could hope to avoid the frequent trips between Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Pittsburgh.
Filip Lindberg Not Expected To Return This Season
- Penguins prospect goaltender Filip Lindberg is out for the rest of the season, notes Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The 23-year-old was drafted by Minnesota but signed with Pittsburgh after three stellar seasons at UMass (Amherst). However, he suffered an ankle injury in November in just his seventh professional game and it appears it’s significant enough that he won’t return for the stretch run.
Injury Notes: Matheson, Edmundson, Donskoi
The Pittsburgh Penguins activated defenseman Mike Matheson from injured reserve today, per the team, sending down young Pierre-Olivier Joseph to the AHL to make way for Matheson’s return. Matheson’s been absent from the lineup for about two weeks, originally classified as week-to-week with an upper-body injury. His offensive production has been a nice surprise for Pittsburgh this season, as he’s on the best pace of his career with 21 points in 50 games. He’s been a solid bottom-four rock in Pittsburgh this season, but he’ll jump up alongside Kris Letang in his return to the ice with Brian Dumoulin out of the lineup.
More injury notes from around the league:
- In what’s been a solid recent surge for the Montreal Canadiens, they could be getting a fan-favorite back into the lineup soon. Defenseman Joel Edmundson has been sidelined all season with an injury, but the team said today that he’s close to making his season debut. What was originally an undisclosed day-to-day injury during training camp in September snowballed into a back injury that’s prevented him from taking the ice this season. He’d be, in effect, Ben Chiarot’s replacement in the lineup after Chiarot is inevitably dealt at the Trade Deadline, which is arguably an upgrade for the team if Edmundson is at full strength and form. He’s in the second season of a four-year, $14M deal.
- In the midst of a tough season, Seattle Kraken forward Joonas Donskoi has landed on injured reserve. The Kraken recalled forward Kole Lind from the Charlotte Checkers in his place. Donskoi suffered an undisclosed injury during the team’s March 8 game against Toronto. He has just two goals in 57 games this year, shooting at a rate of just 3.0%. Locked in through next season, hopefully, the tides turn over the offseason for Donskoi’s scoring luck.
Penguins Notes: Forward Depth, Big Three, Drozg
Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ron Hextall spoke with the media today and touched on several subjects, including his trade deadline plans. While he feels “pretty good” about the team overall, he did mention that he would like to add to his forward group if possible. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic chimes in to specify that the Penguins are looking for a top-six scoring winger, one that comes with some term and is not an expiring contract.
There will be countless players linked to the Penguins in the coming days and it is important to note that the team has their first-round pick still, something the franchise has been notorious for dangling whenever they want to add talent. In fact, the Penguins have selected a player in the first round just twice since 2013, and one of those–Kasperi Kapanen–was traded before he ever played a game for the team, then bought back in another deal that included a first.
- Hextall also touched on the big three pending free agents in Pittsburgh, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Bryan Rust. “Geno” and “Tanger” are two of the team’s top priorities according to the front office executive, who hopes that they can work out a deal that works for both sides in all three cases. Just yesterday a report emerged on Letang’s negotiations, but things are much less clear with a player like Rust, who is in line for a huge raise over the $3.5MM cap hit he has carried the last four seasons. For quite some time now he’s been much more than the quality middle-six depth that signed that contract but there are still concerns over his durability that has limited him to just 36 games this year, and how the team will fit in all three with a salary cap that isn’t set to substantially increase for a little while longer.
- Jan Drozg, in the final season of his three-year entry-level contract, has been loaned from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to the Grand Rapids Griffins, AHL affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings. The 22-year-old has ten points in 23 games for the AHL Penguins this season but has played just once in the past month. At this point in his career, Drozg seems like a prime candidate to go unqualified in the offseason or head back to Europe to continue his development elsewhere. For now, his career takes him to Grand Rapids where he will hopefully get a bigger opportunity.
Update On Kris Letang
The Pittsburgh Penguins have been possibly the most successful team of the salary cap era. Their core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang has brought the team three Stanley Cups and has kept them competitive for an entire generation of hockey. But as that core continues to age deeper into their thirties, there are more and more questions about how much longer the three can remain together as Penguins. Recently, there has been a focus on Letang specifically and his future with the team, given that he is a pending unrestricted free agent. According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, Letang’s future in Pittsburgh is unclear.
Seravalli reports that there are “big gaps” between the team and the player, with the major sticking point being the term on Letang’s next contract. According to Seravalli’s sources, Letang’s representation is seeking a five-year deal with an average annual value beginning at $7MM, and the Penguins are “simply not willing” to even consider Letang on an extension that takes him to the point where he is nearing 40 years old. Letang is currently 34 and will be 35 by the time next season starts, meaning any extension for him carries a significant risk of becoming an albatross, despite how good Letang still is at the NHL level. For a Penguins team that is navigating which direction to go as a franchise long-term, it is understandable for their relatively new management team of Brian Burke and Ron Hextall to be wary of signing Letang to such a massive extension.
The Penguins expect to compete for a Stanley Cup this season, and that’s a very reasonable expectation. Coach Mike Sullivan has been brilliant, leading the squad to a safe position near the top of the Metropolitan Division standings. Letang has been a crucial part of this team’s success, as he typically has been. He has 49 points in 54 games, third on the team behind Crosby and Jake Guentzel, and those 49 points rank just outside the top-5 in defensive scoring league-wide. Letang is also averaging nearly 26 minutes of ice time this season and is the Penguins’ most important defenseman by a mile. Replacing Letang would be extremely difficult for the Penguins to do, and if they have any intentions of competing for a Stanley Cup for the rest of Crosby’s contract (expires after 2024-2025) they will need to have a defenseman like Letang. So those on-ice factors combined with Letang’s importance to the Pittsburgh hockey market in general (he is nearing his 1000th NHL game and has spent his entire career with the Penguins) make his contract situation an incredibly tricky one for Burke and Hextall to navigate. But if Seravalli’s report is any indication, some major changes could be coming to a Penguins’ core that has been the heart of the franchise for a generation of fans.
Corey Andonovski Signs With Pittsburgh Penguins
March 10: Dreger reports that Andonovski has chosen the Pittsburgh Penguins for his NHL home. The Penguins are notorious for bringing players out of the college ranks and giving them a real opportunity at the NHL level. The team has officially announced the two-year contract, noting that it will begin in the 2022-23 season. He’ll join the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on an amateur tryout for the time being.
March 7: As the NCAA season comes to a close for many programs, NHL teams will be desperately trying to sell their organization as the best place for an undrafted talent to take the next step. That’s what is happening in the case of Corey Andonovski, who according to Darren Dreger of TSN “continues to mull over multiple NHL offers” and could make a decision this week.
Andonovski, 22, just finished his third season (and fourth year) at Princeton, scoring 22 points in 31 games. Technically he could go back as he had an extra year of eligibility due to the lost 2020-21 season–when Ivy League schools did not participate in hockey due to COVID restrictions–but that appears not to be the case. Princeton was ousted from the ECAC first round by Union over the weekend, with Andonovski scoring the lone goal for the Tigers in the deciding game.
Since the beginning of this month, NHL teams have been able to sign undrafted prospects to entry-level contracts that start in 2022-23, though that may not necessarily be the case here. Andonovski would be signing a two-year deal either way, meaning if a team really wants to win the battle for his services, they could offer him a contract that starts in 2021-22 instead, get him directly into professional hockey and closer to restricted free agency.
Signing his first NHL contract will be a big step for the former BCHL forward, but there’s potentially another big moment coming up soon as well. On March 16, the Hobey Baker Top-Ten Finalists will be announced, and Andonovski was one of the original nominees. His is a long shot, given how many other outstanding college players there are around the country, but even being nominated is obviously a nice honor in his final season with Princeton.
AHL Shuffle: 03/09/22
Just two games in the NHL this evening, though that does include a matchup between Connor McDavid and Alex Ovechkin. The Edmonton Oilers and Washington Capitals will do battle in a game of two teams headed in opposite directions. The Oilers have lost three in a row and are running the risk of falling out of the Pacific Division playoff race, while the Capitals stormed back yesterday to take their third in a row. As they and others prepare for action, we’ll keep track of all the minor league shuffling.
Atlantic Division
- The Montreal Canadiens have sent down defenseman Corey Schueneman to the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Schueneman, 26, is an undrafted player who impressed in brief NHL action under coach Martin St. Louis and is now headed back to Laval where he has 10 points in 27 games.
Metropolitan Division
- The Pittsburgh Penguins have sent Kasper Bjorkqvist back to the AHL, without him actually getting into a game during this recall. The 24-year-old forward has played in six games this season, all of them coming back in January, and has a single goal.
- The Carolina Hurricanes have recalled goaltender Alex Lyon from the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. Lyon was sent down on Monday and returns to the Hurricanes roster sporting a .908 save percentage in his 2 NHL appearances this season.
Central Division
- Nathan Beaulieu has been moved to long-term injured reserve, with the Winnipeg Jets recalling Ville Heinola in his place. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s getting into the lineup though, as Heinola figures to be the seventh defenseman on the upcoming road trip (at least to start).
Pacific Division
- The Los Angeles Kings have moved Mikey Anderson to injured reserve, recalling Jordan Spence to take his place on the roster. Spence, 21, has been lighting up the minor leagues in his first year of professional hockey, scoring 42 points in 46 games for the Ontario Reign. The fourth-round pick has a very interesting background, including being born in Australia and learning to play hockey in Japan before eventually returning to Canada at 13, the country he competes for internationally.
- The Anaheim Ducks have sent Brendan Guhle to the AHL, as Josh Manson continues to get closer to returning and after the team claimed Andrej Sustr off waivers. Guhle, 24, hasn’t even played in an NHL game this season, despite being up with the team on several occasions.
- The Edmonton Oilers have activated Zack Kassian off of long-term injured reserve and then added Kyle Turris to the list in a corresponding move, according to Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic. Kassian has 14 points in 35 games this year and returns to an Oilers lineup that he has featured in for seven seasons. Turris, 32, was previously mentioned as a trade candidate and has only 4 points in 23 games for the Oilers this season.
This page will be updated throughout the day
Teddy Blueger Activated From Injured Reserve
- The Pittsburgh Penguins have their own forward returning, as they have activated Teddy Blueger from injured reserve. Blueger hasn’t played since he suffered a broken jaw in a January game against the Winnipeg Jets, but is expected to resume his spot as a checking-line center for the Penguins tonight. The 27-year-old was actually on track to blow by his career-highs in goals and points before the injury (and still likely will by the end of the season) after scoring eight goals and 17 points in his first 40 games. Blueger missed 16 games following his jaw surgery.