The Penguins re-upped Evgeni Malkin.<\/p>\n
Does that necessarily mean they\u2019re running it back?<\/p>\n
Retaining Malkin was an obvious move, however against the grain of what president of hockey ops\/GM Kyle Dubas ultimately wants to do. It satisfied the nostalgia, \u201che\u2019s owed that\u201d crowd.<\/p>\n
But maybe that\u2019s merely throwing a bone.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Rickard Rakell and\/or Bryan Rust get traded.<\/p>\n
Despite a salary cap hit of $11.5 million, Erik Karlsson got more marketable after resurrecting his game this past season.<\/p>\n
The Penguins need to move 30-somethings and get 20-somethings, even if it means taking risk.<\/p>\n
Even if it means dropping in the standings.<\/p>\n
That might let the Penguins draft the star-caliber forward they currently don\u2019t have in their system. Ben Kindel, Egor Chinakhov and Bill Zonnon are pretty near but not plumb.<\/p>\n
Sidney Crosby talks like he\u2019s going to play forever.<\/p>\n
Forever is a long time. Another window to win could open up inside of forever.<\/p>\n
That process should have started seven or eight years ago.<\/p>\n
Dubas just finished the third year of his seven-year contract and the Penguins are no closer to building their next legit contender. Dubas has mostly done well, but splitting the difference is impossible.<\/p>\n
So, it needs to stop.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Penguins won\u2019t burn it down.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why they\u2019re the Steelers.<\/p>\n
Get into the playoffs and see what happens.<\/p>\n
Except nothing good happens.<\/p>\n
Are you watching the Stanley Cup playoffs? The Penguins are light years behind the teams that made the final four, even the final eight.<\/p>\n
But Crosby wants to win now.<\/p>\n
So, here are two unrestricted free agents that Dubas should look at:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mason Marchment, left wing, Columbus.<\/p>\n
Marchment, 30, is 6-foot-4, 220 pounds. He plays big, aggressive, tough and dirty.<\/p>\n
Marchment scores just enough: 19 goals last season, 22 in each of the two seasons prior.<\/p>\n
Marchment would add a shenanigans element the Penguins lacked in their playoff series against the Flyers. The ability to initiate. Because sometimes you have to.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Patrik Laine, right wing, Montreal.<\/p>\n
Laine, 28, is a scorer of pedigree: 80 goals in his first two NHL seasons after debuting with Winnipeg in 2016. He was the second pick in that year\u2019s NHL draft. Great one-timer. Excellent on the power play.<\/p>\n
But Laine played just five games this season after undergoing surgery in October for a core muscle injury. He hasn\u2019t played more than 56 games in a season since 2019-20. Laine is brittle.<\/p>\n
Laine might sign for a low guarantee with a truckload of incentives. He could see Pittsburgh as the place to relaunch his career, like Anthony Mantha did by scoring 33 goals this past season.<\/p>\n
Signing Laine would be a gamble. But you\u2019d be gambling on talent.<\/p>\n
This column started out mooting that the Penguins dump veterans, then ricocheted to suggesting that they sign two vets who could help now. It\u2019s all over the place.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because the Penguins are all over the place.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got no idea what they really want to do.<\/p>\n
I wonder if they do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins re-upped Evgeni Malkin. Does that necessarily mean they\u2019re running it back? Retaining Malkin was an obvious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-710817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}