Pool Outlook for Pittsburgh

The addition of Phil Kessel to the Penguins lineup was only one of a number of highlights that helped this Pittsburgh team to push their way through the East and then dominate the San Jose Sharks in the Finals, winning their second Stanley Cup in seven years.  No matter what the additions were, the core of this team still revolves around Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, as their experience and leadership was key throughout the year and all the way through the playoffs.

The Penguins had a rough start to the regular season, which eventually cost their head coach, Mike Johnston, his job in December, but they were a pretty good team on paper and it was their new coach, Mike Sullivan, who managed to realize that potential and they were a pretty good team through the rest of the regular season, finishing second in the Metropolitan Division behind the Capitals.

Once the team hit the playoffs, they were under a large cloud of doubt, especially with their number one goalie, Marc-Andre Fleury, suffering a concussion in April and unable to start for them in the playoffs.  Enter the rookie, Matt Murray, who was a major benefactor from the experience of his teammates in front of him, as he played well enough in a lot of cases to be the eventual champion in the end.

For us poolies, the Penguins will continue to be a fantastic team to pick from, as their core has quite a few years left in them and they might have another good year in them again next season, so you might want to keep them nice and high in your priority list this Fall.

There was a lot of faith in the Penguins at the start of the year, as 14 players were taken from the Pittsburgh system at the draft, including a whopping three 1st round picks... Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury and Phil Kessel.  Expectations were pretty high on this team and that was reflected early on in the year.  That bubble burst in a big hurry, as the Penguins' early struggles saw five of those players dropped in Week Nine, with no picks to speak of and even when they were on the upswing in Week Eighteen, there was still one drop and one pick by then.  During the year, the Penguins did add a little bit of help, but it wasn't enough to be a popular team, as they finished the year with only 11 players on active rosters in the pool.

Crosby's struggles were very well documented through the year, as he was almost non-existant for the longest time in the scoring race, but his second half was back to his standards or maybe even slightly above, as he still finished the year with 36 goals and 85 points in 80 games this year, ranking 6th overall in pool scoring, 3rd among forwards.  He was taken with the 2nd overall pick this year, so it was still considered a bit of a dud season, thanks to that awful start.

The Penguins ended up with 14 total players that were worthy of selection in the pool, which meant that some of us poolies missed the boat here.  Phil Kessel, Evgeni Malkin, Patric Hornqvist, Chris Kunitz, Carl Hagelin, Matt Cullen and Nick Bonino rounded out the forwards of note, while Kris Letang, Trevor Daley, Olli Maatta and Justin Schultz were worthy from the back and in net, both Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray earned enough points for a nod.

What I Said Last Year, At This Time...

The management team appears to be safe after one year and it sounds like the coaching staff is safe for another go around as well.  I don't think I can pin the bad luck they had in 2015 on them, so they need another year to bring this team back to glory.  There in lies the prediction part of this post, can they get back up to glory in 2016?  Why couldn't they?  I think Fleury got better this past year and if they can somehow address their health issues in the off-season and possibly get to be more durable through training, there is no reason why they could excel through the regular season and into the playoffs again.  Their division is tough and it will be a tight fit to get all these teams in, but I think the Penguins will be back in the race for the division title again, at the very least.

Being in the same division as the Washington Capitals hurt their overall chances at the division title, but an appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals was nothing to sneeze at, even if Fleury wasn't the goalie that got them there in the end.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much for bold predictions around this time last year, but those are really hard to do and very rare to be correct.  Even going into this year's playoffs, without Fleury, they were not faring very well in the prediction department, but they still managed to blow everyone away.

2017 Pool Outlook

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	8.000	Trevor Daley	3.300
Patric Hornqvist	4.250
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
Pascal Dupuis	3.750
Theodor Blueger	0.705	Ethan Prow	0.730	Sean Maguire	0.705
Oskar Sundqvist	0.701	Lukas Bengtsson	0.705	Tristan Jarry	0.620
Daniel Sprong	0.693	Reid McNeill	0.575
Dominik Simon	0.693
Josh Archibald	0.659
Scott Wilson	0.625
Carter Rowney	0.613
Jean-Sebastien Dea	0.585
Dustin Jeffrey	0.575

There is lots of talent on this Pittsburgh Penguins team and arguably, there might be too much.  The player separated at the top are pool worthy, the team has a good bunch of unworthy support, Pascal Dupuis will be a LTIR player for the last year of his contract and then everyone below are looking to crack the lineup.  I don't think this table will look anywhere near the same by the start of the season, as pieces will likely have to be moved out, but the core staying together will key and fairly easy to do.  The Penguins have a strong outlook for us poolies next season.

Since they have some large contracts to move out, they will likely have to fill some spots with some youth and between Oskar Sundqvist, who played some in the 2016 season, and Daniel Sprong, they do have a couple of young talented forwards who could earn jobs next season.  With the amount of talent they will have to play with, if they get to play with said players, they have some real potential for points by osmosis in this lineup.

Needs at the 2016 Entry Draft

The deal that brought Phil Kessel to town has its ramifications into this June's entry draft, as the Penguins used their 1st round pick, in a conditional sense (all conditions met), to acquire the scoring winger from Toronto, so the Maple Leafs will make a selection from the Penguins' spot.  Kessel's impressive playoff run really softened the blow, for sure.

The Penguins have a couple of picks in the 2nd round, theirs and Anaheim's, thanks to another deal with Vancouver, that also brought Nick Bonino along, which turned out well for them.  The Penguins will fill their coffers a little bit more, but won't have a marquee pick.

Free Agency and the Salary Cap

With Pascal Dupuis' final year of his deal likely to hit the LTIR, the Penguins will have a little bit of space to work with, when it comes to their number against the cap ceiling.  In the first two levels of their table above, they come into this off-season with 19 players signed and ready to go at $70 million, including some retained salary in previous deals.

Last year's cap number was $71.4 million and it will be very interesting to see the direction that number goes in.  Even if it stays the same, the Penguins don't have a lot of money to work with to re-sign some key free agents, which means that they will likely be wheeling and dealing ahead of the free agency period, trying to free up some space.

On the docket for new deals, includes restricted free agents Justin Schultz and Beau Bennett, while unrestricted free agents Matt Cullen and Ben Lovejoy may not be as lucky to come back, due to those salary constraints.

It is going to be very difficult for the Penguins to justify keeping Marc-Andre Fleury around at nearly $6 million per year, but his deal is one that could also be difficult to trade, if they went looking for one.  I can't see the Penguins moving Fleury this season, well... not until Murray gets a little bit more action as the number one guy, if that is the way they decide to go.  The Penguins, with Fleury or Murray, have the right pieces in place to be a contending team again and much like other Cup winners in recent memory, there won't be as much of an onus on winning every regular season game, rather just trying to get hot at the right time at the end of the year.  I like where the Penguins are as an organization, there is potential in their system to replace what they'll lose and they'll be back in the playoffs next year, but how far they'll go will solely be determined on how their off-season goes.  Can they strike it rich again?  That could be just as difficult as repeating as Cup champs.