Erik Karlsson Leading NHL Defensemen In Scoring Since Olympic Break
- Penguins defender Erik Karlsson was among the most popular names in trade rumors last season. Even as his contract becomes more movable, the Penguins’ success this season has made the idea of holding on to him for the last year of his deal in 2026-27 more attractive. As the Pens’ PR account pointed out this morning, he’s having arguably the most dominant stretch of his career since his days as a yearly Norris contender in Ottawa. He has nine goals and 12 points in his last six outings and leads NHL defensemen in scoring since the Olympic break with a 5-12–17 line in 13 games.
Penguins Expected To Activate Sidney Crosby From IR
Penguins star Sidney Crosby was a full participant in this morning’s skate and is expected to come off injured reserve for tonight’s game against the Hurricanes, per Josh Getzoff of SportsNet Pittsburgh. Crosby had been out since the Olympic break with a Grade 2 MCL sprain he sustained in Team Canada’s quarterfinal win over the Czechs. The Penguins said Crosby would miss at least four weeks when they placed him on IR on Feb. 25, putting his return well ahead of schedule.
The 38-year-old pushing the envelope to get back in the lineup is no surprise. He pushed as hard as he could to get back into Canada’s lineup for the gold medal game, but ultimately couldn’t go, as they ended up with silver in an overtime loss to the United States. He’ll now return to help the Penguins battle through a tough playoff race in the Eastern Conference after sitting out what surely felt like an excruciating 11 games.
Pittsburgh is 5-3-3 without its captain and franchise icon. That’s been enough to keep pace and is about as good as can be expected, considering they were also missing Evgeni Malkin for a five-game stretch due to a slashing suspension. They’ve scored 3.45 goals per game during that time while allowing 3.18 goals per game. Their possession metrics have lagged, controlling 48.5% of 5-on-5 shot attempts. They’re also winning a league-worst 41.0% of faceoffs since the break.
Crosby will help immensely in all of those areas. Aside from his usual stature as the club’s leading point-getter, he’s won a team-high 55.4% of his draws this season, which should get the Pens much closer to league average in that department. Surprisingly, Crosby’s defensive results this season aren’t great – he’s only a +1 on a team with a +35 goal differential, and his possession numbers are dead average – but his return importantly allows Rickard Rakell to shift back to his preferred position on the wing after stepping in for Crosby as the Pens’ top-line center over the last few weeks.
With no roster limit and plenty of cap space, Pittsburgh won’t need to make a corresponding move to activate Crosby. They could still opt to reassign prospects Avery Hayes or Ville Koivunen back to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton if their NHL playing time is going to be limited following Crosby’s return. Hayes was already a healthy scratch when Malkin was reinstated for Monday’s dominant road win over the Avalanche, so that could be an indication he’ll be on his way back down after being ferried to the minors on deadline day to make him AHL-eligible for the rest of the season.
Crosby, who’s got another year left at his $8.7MM cap hit, now hopes to anchor the Pens’ skaters to a playoff appearance after a three-year absence from postseason play, the only time in Crosby’s career he’s missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons and the first time at all since his rookie year. They’re in a good spot, holding serve for second in the Metropolitan Division. They’re tied with the Islanders at 83 points but have done so in one fewer game, giving them a higher points percentage. Per MoneyPuck, they have an 81.8% chance of making the playoffs.
Penguins Want To Keep Erik Karlsson, Anthony Mantha
At the beginning of the 2025-26 season, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Pittsburgh Penguins would trade Erik Karlsson and use Anthony Mantha as a half-year rental before dishing him at the trade deadline. Now, according to Josh Yohe of The Athletic, the Penguins want both players on their opening night roster for the 2026-27 campaign, if not longer.
Before this season, Karlsson looked like a shell of himself, far removed from the Norris Trophy campaign during the 2022-23 season with the San Jose Sharks. From 2023 to 2025, Karlsson scored 22 goals and 109 points in 164 games with a -20 rating, averaging 23:45 of ice time per game. Additionally, his 87.2% on-ice SV% at even strength last season was the worst of his career.
Although that’s typically respectable production from a puck-moving defenseman in his mid-30s, it didn’t justify his $11.5MM salary, $1.5MM of which was being paid by the Sharks. It was particularly his drop-off defensively that had the writing on the wall in Pittsburgh.
However, under head coach Dan Muse, Karlsson has found new life. He’ll finish with similar point totals this year, but he’s been much more responsible in the defensive zone. His 53.8% CorsiFor% at even strength is the best he’s had since he was 28, and his 89.7% oiSV% at even strength is right on line with his career average.
According to Yohe, instead of trading Karlsson this offseason, the Penguins may look to extend him for a few more years. It would be an interesting gamble, given that Karlsson will be 37 for his next contract. However, if he maintains his production level and assumes a significantly lower salary, it might not be a bad idea.
Meanwhile, Mantha has made the most of his one-year, $2.5MM prove-it deal in Pittsburgh. After losing much of the 2024-25 season due to an ACL injury, Mantha has rebounded in a big way, scoring 26 goals and 52 points in 67 games for the Penguins.
Furthermore, as Yohe points out, Mantha is only 31, meaning he’s not necessarily old by NHL standards. It’s unlikely that the Penguins will engage in a bidding war if Mantha makes it to the open market this summer, but a four-year deal shouldn’t be out of the question given how he’s played this season.
Regardless, as much as the influx of youth has benefited Pittsburgh this season, its top five scorers are in their 30s. They’re a primary reason that the Penguins are poised for a postseason run for the first time since the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Penguins’ Blake Lizotte Out A Month, Justin Brazeau And Evgeni Malkin Back
Another lineup change is inbound for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The team will add star Evgeni Malkin back into the fold in Monday night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche after the conclusion of a five-game suspension for slashing. Pittsburgh will also have scoring winger Justin Brazeau back from an injury that held him out of the last four games per Josh Getzoff of Sportsnet Pittsburgh. One of the decisions for who to remove from the lineup will be made for Pittsburgh, as centerman Blake Lizotte is out with an upper-body injury.
After missing Monday night’s game, the Penguins announced that Lizotte would not be re-evaluated for at least four weeks. He will stay on the shelf and could land on injured reserve, while Pittsburgh will be faced with how to make up for an impactful, bottom-six center.
Malkin and Brazeau are expected to resume their roles filling out Pittsburgh’s right-wing depth chart. The former has continued to serve as a cornerstone of the Penguins lineup even in his age-39 season. Malkin has scored 13 goals and 47 points in 46 games this season. That is the second-highest points-per-game on the team behind only Sidney Crosby, who has 59 points in 56 games. The pair of future Hall-of-Famers continue to drive Pittsburgh’s offense, though the Penguins will only be able to lean on Malkin in the short-term, as Crosby continues to recover from an injury of his own.
While Malkin fortifies the top of the lineup, Brazeau will bring a goal-scoring presence back to the middle-six. He has racked up 16 goals and 30 points in 48 games this season, while averaging 13 minutes of ice time each game. It has been a breakout year for Brazeau, who split the 2024-25 season between the Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild, ultimately totaling 22 points in 76 games. A hot start to the year with Boston encouraged a Spring trade, but after netting just two points in 19 games with Minnesota, Brazeau was left on the open market this summer. Pittsburgh swooped in to land a 27 year old capable of filling a veteran presence among their young forward group.
Even with two strong scorers back in the lineup, Pittsburgh will feel the brunt of losing Lizotte to injury. He has served as a hard-working center all season long, often filling defensive and utility roles to help clear space for Pittsburgh’s stars. Lizotte ranks third on the Penguins, behind Crosby and Noel Acciari, with a 50.0 faceoff percentage on 476 draws this season. He also ranks sixth on the offense in hits (49) and shot blocks (35).
Lizotte’s absence will leave a hole that will require some shifting to fill. Rookie Benjamin Kindel is likely to move to the center position, while Bryan Rust is able to move back to his natural wing with Pittsburgh’s pair of returns. These changes will leave one of Avery Hayes or Elmer Soderblom outside of the lineup on Monday. Hayes has gone without a point in his last 10 games after scoring two goals in his NHL debut. Soderblom, who seems more likely to stick in the lineup, has yet to record a point in four games with the Penguins. He was acquired from the Detroit Red Wings prior to the Trade Deadline.
Penguins Recall Jack St. Ivany From Conditioning Loan
3/16: After three games in the AHL, Pittsburgh has recalled St. Ivany from his conditioning loan. He scored one point and a plus-one in his ramp back to a lineup role. In a corresponding move, the Penguins have also assigned defenseman Alexander Alexeyev to the AHL. Alexeyev has scored seven points in 29 AHL games, and has not yet played in the NHL, this season. He is a veteran of 80 NHL games, all spent with Pittsburgh’s rival Washington Capitals, with eight points and 12 penalty minutes.
3/9: The Penguins announced this morning that they have assigned defender Jack St. Ivany to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning loan. He’ll remain on injured reserve for the time being and can spend up to two weeks in the minors.
St. Ivany, 26, suffered a left-hand fracture in a Jan. 25 game against the Canucks. The third-year NHLer also missed over two months to start the season with a lower-body injury. In the six weeks between IR stints, he looked well on his way toward locking down a job as their #3 righty behind cornerstones Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang. In his 17-game run in the lineup, primarily next to Ryan Shea, he posted seven assists with a +7 rating while averaging 15:39 of ice time per night. He got occasional deployment on the penalty kill and a raucous 2.35 hits per game, but his 106.1 PDO and underwater possession metrics across the board suggest some regression in his 5-on-5 numbers is likely.
His injuries have only added to what’s been a constant shuffle of defensive depth in Pittsburgh this season. The only constants in the lineup have been Letang, Shea, and their top pairing of Karlsson and Parker Wotherspoon. Brett Kulak did some good work in second-pairing duties with Letang, but was swapped to the Avalanche for Samuel Girard a couple of weeks ago. The early returns there are questionable with no points and a -2 rating in seven outings. Pittsburgh has five other D-men – Connor Clifton, Ryan Graves, Mathew Dumba, Harrison Brunicke, and Ilya Solovyov – who have played at least five games for them this year.
With Girard locking down the left-side order with Wotherspoon and Shea, it’s been the right-shot Clifton (and sometimes lefties Solovyov and Graves coming in on their offside) getting more ice time in St. Ivany’s absence. It’s worth wondering if Clifton has played well enough over the past month-plus to keep a spot ahead of St. Ivany on the depth chart when he’s cleared to return. He’s a bit more trusted on the penalty kill and has far superior possession impacts to St. Ivany at 5-on-5, including a quite impressive 54.5% expected goals share. Clifton also leads the team in hits per game by a wide margin at 4.03.
Penguins Recall Alexander Alexeyev
The Penguins announced today that defender Alexander Alexeyev has been recalled from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Fellow rearguard Ryan Graves has been sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning stint in a corresponding move, although he’ll continue to count on Pittsburgh’s active roster with his full cap impact while in the minors.
Alexeyev, 26, signed a league-minimum deal with the Pens last offseason. He cleared waivers to start the year and has been in and out of the lineup for WBS since then, only playing in 29 out of 57 games. He has three goals and four assists for seven points with a +4 rating.
Pittsburgh is trying to keep its depth defenders fresh amid a rash of injuries that’s seen Samuel Girard and Jack St. Ivany sidelined, although the latter’s been out for a while and is joined by Graves in WBS on a conditioning loan. They’ve dialed in their depth chart this late in the year, meaning Graves, who’s slotted in as a #7/8 option, has not gotten into a game in nearly two months after missing some time with a lower-body injury. They want to get him into some games in the minors, but don’t want to travel without an extra defender in case a last-minute injury comes up, so Alexeyev will arrive today to fill that role.
The 6’4″, 229-lb Alexeyev was brought in to provide some shutdown depth. He once had some real upside, evidenced by the Capitals selecting him 31st overall in the 2018 draft, but it was obvious he wasn’t on the path toward being a full-time NHLer when Washington non-tendered him last summer. Considering the minimal impact he’s had in an AHL role this year, too, he certainly won’t be looking at another one-way deal this summer if he does receive more NHL offers. The Russian could very well entertain offers to return home, where he last played for Salavat Yulaev Ufa in the Kontinental Hockey League on loan from the Caps in the 2020-21 season.
As for Graves, he’s wrapping up the third season of the six-year, $27MM deal he landed from Pittsburgh in free agency in 2023. He’s still not close to warranting his $4.5MM cap hit, but has posted significantly improved defensive results for the Pens in a more limited leverage role this year after a disastrous 2024-25 season. In 19 showings, he’s notched a goal and a -2 rating with 15 hits. The boxcar stats don’t jump off the page, but his under-the-hood numbers are the best they’ve been in quite some time – controlling 52.2% of shot attempts at 5-on-5 in defensive-minded deployment.
Penguins’ Justin Brazeau Out Week-To-Week
It appears the Pittsburgh Penguins lineup will stay shaken up by injury. Three players have been designated as out with upper-body injuries. Winger Justin Brazeau is out on a week-to-week basis, while center Kevin Hayes and defenseman Samuel Girard are out day-to-day. Brazeau and Hayes missed Sunday’s overtime win over the Boston Bruins while Girard played 18 minutes in the matchup. It is not clear when exactly the trio of injuries were sustained.
Brazeau was originally deemed as out day-to-day. His downgraded status will be bad news for a Penguins’ top-six already without Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. Brazeau has emerged as a hot hand in the Penguins lineup this season. He has 16 goals and 30 points in 48 games, fourth on the team in goals and seventh in total scoring. It is a breakout year after Brazeau stamped his NHL spot with 20 points in 57 games with the Boston Bruins last season. He finished his 2024-25 campaign with the Minnesota Wild but moved on after only scoring two points in 19 games with the club. Brazeau signed a two-year, $3MM contract with Pittsburgh on July 1st.
Another man down will force another promotion into the Penguins’ top-six. Wingers Egor Chinakhov and Ville Koivunen earned increased minutes in the wake of Pittsburgh’s superstar injuries, while Rickard Rakell moved to a center role. Chinakhov has earned his keep with five points in seven games since the return from the Winter Olympic break – but Pittsburgh’s offense overall has dwindled to a 3.00 goals-per-game average in that span, down from their 3.37 average across the full season.
While attempting to patch holes in the top-six, Pittsburgh will also need to make up for Hayes and Girard on their bottom lines. Rookies Avery Hayes and Benjamin Kindel have recently split center duties in the bottom-six, while Connor Clifton will draw back onto the blue-line. The Penguins success this season has largely been driven by their rookie forwards, making the boost in minutes timely. Clifton only has five points in 32 appearances this season – though he has stayed above bar with a plus-two, one of seven Penguins defensemen with a positive plus-minus.
The Penguins will likely lean on their top lines and veteran skaters as they take on the top team in the Metropolitan Division, the Carolina Hurricanes, on Tuesday night. Pittsburgh sits second in their division, eight points behind Carolina.
Joona Koppanen Expected To Sign With SHL’s Lulea HF
Penguins pending UFA center Joona Koppanen is expected to sign with Luleå HF of the Swedish Hockey League for next year, as noted by David Olsson Jiglund of Kuriren. He won’t technically be a UFA until July 1, but he can formalize an agreement with them when SHL free agency opens in May, after the NHL regular season is over.
Koppanen, 28, was a fifth-round pick by the Bruins in 2016. He didn’t make his NHL debut until six years later, which turned out to be his final season in the Boston organization. He became a Group VI unrestricted free agent in 2023 and signed a two-year deal with Pittsburgh, where he’s remained ever since, primarily as a big AHL depth piece with some call-up utility.
The 6’5″, 216-lb Finn has appeared in 30 NHL games over the past four seasons, 27 of which have come in Pittsburgh. He has just one goal and two assists, though, along with a -4 rating while averaging 11:55 of ice time per game. He’s below-average on draws and, while he’s provided fine possession metrics in heavy defensive usage, hasn’t excelled there either. That makes his low point totals in double-digit minutes per game too much of a net negative to give him an extended look, even if he does provide an effective physical presence, averaging two hits per game.
In the AHL, Koppanen has been a consistent, two-way, middle-six forward. He almost always averages around a half a point per game, including a 6-10–16 scoring line with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season.
Koppanen will now play in a top-level European league for the first time since the 2020-21 campaign. He spent all of his post-draft campaign in Finland’s junior circuit before Boston signed him to an entry-level deal. For 2017-18, they loaned him to Ilves in Finland’s first division, Liiga, for most of the year before bringing him over to North America for the rest of his tenure in the organization. He then returned to Ilves on loan during the COVID-shortened 2021 season before AHL games got underway.
He’ll join a Luleå team that won its first SHL championship since 1996 last year. They’re relatively light on NHL experience for a big-name European club, though. Leading the way with 91 games from 2010-14 is 37-year-old defenseman Erik Gustafsson (not the current Red Wings depth name).
Kyle Dubas Deserves Praise For Retooling The Penguins
When the Pittsburgh Penguins dismissed GM Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke in April 2023, it created a vacancy that needed to be filled by an individual with a clear vision. The Penguins arguably had the least desirable job in the NHL, and there was no extensive list of candidates capable of stepping in and transforming a struggling franchise.
Pittsburgh had missed the playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons, had an aging, costly roster, lacked prospects in the pipeline, had very few draft picks, and had minimal cap space. Despite all the negatives linked to the role, Pittsburgh leveraged its considerable resources at the time to attract Kyle Dubas to lead the organization, offering him a lengthy, substantial financial commitment and full autonomy to run the team as he deemed fit.
It was a significant gamble, and one that appears to be paying off nearly three years later.
Make no mistake: during the first two months Dubas was in charge, he did almost nothing right. The Ryan Graves contract remains a complete disaster; the Tristan Jarry deal was a major failure; and the other contracts he signed that summer did little to benefit the Penguins the following season.
The only positive from that summer was acquiring three-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, who hasn’t been his usual offensive self but has become a more complete defender this season.
But during the 2023-24 season, when it became clear the Penguins were out of contention, they shifted to a retooling approach that resembled a rebuild. At the deadline, Dubas traded pending UFA Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes for forward Michael Bunting, a second-round pick that would become defenseman Harrison Brunicke, forward prospects Ville Koivunen, Vasiliy Ponomarev, and Cruz Lucius, along with a 2024 conditional fifth-round pick.
It was a significant haul for Dubas, although it lacked top-tier assets and was viewed as a move focused on quantity rather than quality. Nevertheless, the move sparked a run for Dubas that allowed him to avoid a full-scale rebuild, despite widespread belief that he was rebuilding the Penguins.
Dubas started dismantling the Penguins’ roster by trading away several veterans. At the same time, he added draft picks and young players who hadn’t panned out elsewhere, along with veterans on overpriced contracts that their former teams needed to shed for salary-cap reasons.
Dubas was happy to acquire these types of players in exchange for draft picks, as shown in his trades for Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass, in which he received second-, third-, and sixth-round picks for taking on their contracts. He also made short-term bets on players with potential upside, signing forward Anthony Beauvillier to a one-year deal and defenceman Matt Grzelcyk for just one year.
During the first part of the 2024-25 season, Dubas’ decisions seemed disastrous. The Penguins were out of playoff contention by January and began selling off pending UFAs, starting with Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor, whom they traded to the Vancouver Canucks for a first-round pick and several other veterans who were eventually moved out.
Dubas kept retooling, moving on from Glass to acquire more assets, including Bunting, who eventually helped the Penguins land Thomas Novak and additional draft picks. He also traded Beauvillier for a second-round draft pick at the deadline and acquired Connor Dewar and Conor Timmins for a fifth-rounder.
It all seemed like a video game. Dubas was wheeling and dealing as if he had a controller in his hand, but on-ice results were underwhelming at best.
The Penguins missed the playoffs for a third straight year, and fans and media alike began questioning whether Sidney Crosby should remain in Pittsburgh, since Dubas wasn’t building a strong team around him. Despite missing postseason hockey, the Penguins weren’t building for the here and now, as Dubas was adding draft picks and younger assets – something many believed was impossible without a full rebuild.
Aside from the asset acquisition, another big story was brewing. Dubas had pulled the Penguins out of an awful cap situation, and they had flexibility on the horizon.
Pittsburgh has over $47MM in cap space available this summer (per PuckPedia) and won’t have a ton of holes to fill, as they finally have a youth movement coming.
Then there was the mastery Dubas showed during the summer of 2025, first drafting Benjamin Kindel with the 11th overall pick, which most people thought was a reach. He then traded down with his second pick and ultimately left the first round of the entry draft with Bill Zonnon and Will Horcoff.
Dubas then spent the rest of the summer acquiring castoffs and second-round picks, taking on Matt Dumba’s contract and the sweetener from the Stars, as well as Connor Clifton from Buffalo. By late summer, the Penguins had more draft capital for the next three NHL drafts than any other team, all without a full-scale rebuild.
Dubas also went bargain-hunting among free agents last summer and found great success, signing Anthony Mantha to a one-year deal that has been a significant bargain, as well as defensemen Parker Wotherspoon and Justin Brazeau, who fill top four and top six roles on the Penguins for just $2.5MM combined and are signed for another season.
But Dubas’s best work this season has been the Jarry for Stuart Skinner swap and the Egor Chinakhov trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Skinner has outperformed Jarry since the trade, playing exceptionally well and helping the Penguins re-enter playoff contention.
Pittsburgh also received a second-round pick and Brett Kulak from Edmonton, who was later traded for Samuel Girard and an additional second-round pick. The Chinakhov trade, on the other hand, has worked out splendidly, as he has fit seamlessly alongside Evgeni Malkin, and the Penguins have been red hot since the trade.
Pittsburgh is now firmly in a playoff race, even without Crosby and, more recently, Malkin. The team isn’t a Stanley Cup favourite, but Dubas has achieved the impossible with this roster in just a few short years.
He made the team younger and faster, overhauled the prospect system, accumulated draft picks, and gained cap flexibility. He managed all of this while keeping the team in playoff contention during the final years of Crosby, Malkin, and Kris Letang.
Dubas provided the Penguins with direction and made the tough decisions and bold moves that come with having a clear vision. Make no mistake, Dubas had the term and independence when he was hired; he could have torn down the roster and taken the easy route to rebuild.
But he chose the more challenging path of retooling on the fly, one of the toughest ways to build. Dubas took one of the league’s oldest rosters and revitalized it, and for that, he deserves a lot of credit.
Brazeau Out With An Injury
The Pittsburgh Penguins called on trade acquisition Elmer Soderblom to make his team debut on Sunday after Justin Brazeau was ruled out with an undisclosed injury, head coach Dan Muse told Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports. The injury ended Brazeau’s streak of 37 consecutive games played, which was the seventh-longest streak on the team, as pointed out by Rorabaugh.
Brazeau’s absence will mark another blow to the Penguins offense after star Evgeni Malkin was handed a five-game suspension for slashing. Brazeau has three points in his last four games and 30 points in 48 games this season. He has accelerated a hot streak that began with the Boston Bruins last year, where he scored 20 points in 57 games. Pittsburgh brought rookie Avery Hayes back into the lineup in response ot Malkin’s absence. Now, they’ll turn towards the towering Soderblom to try and keep things going. He has only scored three points in 39 games this season.