Penguins Re-Sign Schultz

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they have re-signed 26-year old defenseman Justin Schultz to a new 1-year, $1.4 million deal and he'll return to the fold, where he played a small role in the Penguins' Stanley Cup run in the Spring.

Schultz was supposed to be a restricted free agent, but the Penguins were not going to tender a qualifying offer, as his salary numbers were somewhat inflated from his initial signings in Edmonton and his role didn't quite reflect those salary numbers.  With the signing today, his number looks a little more reasonable and with a single year commitment, he'll head to unrestricted free agency again and his number will become flexible again.

In the regular season last year, split between Edmonton and Pittsburgh, the offensive-minded rearguard played in 63 games, scoring 4 goals and 18 points, ranking 98th among all defenders in scoring, just within the pool worthy confines of our list.  With the Penguins, he had 8 points in 18 games, which was a better scoring rate than with the Oilers, so there is some upside, if he can stay in the lineup.

The Penguins will be relying on the Long Term Injured Reserve numbers, if this roster is to go forward, as their current cap number, with Pascal Dupuis on the books, is over $2.8 million beyond the cap ceiling.  The patience level with this club will be pretty high, despite their large price tag, but things can change in the blink of an eye and contracts could be moved, like that big one in their crease.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Evgeni Malkin	9.500	Kris Letang	7.250	Marc-Andre Fleury	5.750
Sidney Crosby	8.700	Olli Maatta	4.083	Matt Murray	0.620
Phil Kessel	6.800	Trevor Daley	3.300
Patric Hornqvist	4.250	Justin Schultz	1.400
Carl Hagelin	4.000
Chris Kunitz	3.850
Nick Bonino	1.900
Eric Fehr	2.000	Ian Cole	2.100
Conor Sheary	0.668	Derrick Pouliot	0.863
Bryan Rust	0.640	Brian Dumoulin	0.800
Tom Kuhnhackl	0.625
Oskar Sundqvist	0.701
Dustin Jeffrey	0.575
Tom Sestito	0.575
Pascal Dupuis	3.750
Theodor Blueger	0.705	Ethan Prow	0.730	Sean Maguire	0.705
Daniel Sprong	0.693	Lukas Bengtsson	0.705	Tristan Jarry	0.620
Dominik Simon	0.693	Reid McNeill	0.575
Josh Archibald	0.659	Tim Erixon	0.575
Scott Wilson	0.625	Steven Oleksy	0.575
Carter Rowney	0.613	David Warsofsky	0.575
Jean-Sebastien Dea	0.585	Cameron Gaunce	0.575
Kevin Porter	0.575	Chad Ruhwedel	0.575
Garrett Wilson	0.575	Stuart Percy	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system