A few more weeks have ticked by since our last summer checklist for key decisions the Pittsburgh Penguins have on their docket, so let’s go back and see what has gone on, and what is yet to come as hockey enters what traditionally is its dead period of August.
Step 5: Name assistant coaches
It’ll be interesting to see the first staff that Muse gets together for the upcoming season
It’s an eclectic group that will be coaching the Pens this season. Dan Muse got the chance for seemingly one hire on his own and added Nick Bonino from his past in Nashville and New York as the rare player-to-NHL-coach transition. Bonino’s obvious past with the Pens and the veteran players made that an easy hire, what he lacks in experience should be made up for by having intimate, unique knowledge on how key members of the team (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust if he’s not traded) operate.
From there, the Pens hired Todd Nelson in what looks like a home run assistant coach hire. Nelson has NHL experience and is coming off a lot of success with AHL Hershey. Nelson will work with the forwards and run the power play and should add a ton of value to Muse and Bonino.
Pittsburgh rounded out their bench with veteran assistant Mike Stothers to work with the defensemen and penalty kill. Stothers, 62, has a lot more experience in juniors and the AHL than the NHL but did work most recently in coaching with NHL Anaheim from 2021-23.
The Pens also added Rich Clune, a Toronto connection with Kyle Dubas, to be an assistant who will help the staff but not work on the bench during games.
Step 6: Decisions on internal free agents
This has been ongoing with recent re-signings of Boko Imama and Joona Koppanen in recent days. Pittsburgh still has Matt Nieto, Matt Grzelcyk, Nate Clurman, Marc Johnstone, Jimmy Huntington, Colton Poolman and Mattias Laferriere on their unrestricted list
The Pens, as expected, brought back none of their free agents from unrestricted list above, with a slight procedural technicality that we’ll talk about in the next segment.
Step 6b: Qualifying offer decisions on restricted free agents
Conor Timmins, Philip Tomasino, Ponomarev, Connor Dewar. P.O Joseph and Emil Bemstrom are on the list in a quick placement of most to least likely to see qualifying offers.
Pittsburgh opted to not qualify any players on this list, with the exception of an administrative offer issued to Ponomarev, who had already signed back in Russia. Timmins was traded to Buffalo in June and the team decided they didn’t want to give QO’s and the arbitration leverage that comes with it (which could have come with two-year commitments) to Tomasino and Dewar — but as it turned out when both his unrestricted free agency they found a way to work out team-friendly one-year contracts that satisfied all parties.
Joseph hit UFA and signed with Vancouver. Bemstrom is apparently still a free agent and surprisingly hasn’t jumped back to a European club yet. Qualifying offers were once a formality but this cycle demonstrated very clearly the modern strategies on how to bring back mid-level players on a team’s own terms and avoiding the RFA/arbitration process.
Step 7: the draft
The first round is Friday June 27, the Pens pick 11th (and possibly 12th, NYR dependent). Rounds 2-7 are Saturday June 28th.
The Pens picked up 13 young players in the draft, the biggest and most interesting decision to watch unfold in the years to come was the team electing to trade out of pick 12 and eventually end up with two later first round picks. Pittsburgh could have had Victor Eklund, Jackson Smith, Kashawn Aitcheson or Jack Nesbitt (the last name hearing his name called at pick No. 12) and exited draft weekend with Bill Zonnon and Will Horcoff instead. The wisdom of that decision will be tracked and talked about for a long time.
Step 8: July 1 madness
Pittsburgh figures not to be a player involved in going after key free agents that will command a large salary and term commitment, but that doesn’t mean that silly season won’t be active.
So far the first part of that sentence rang incredibly true, but the second part…not so much. The Pens only signed Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau, Parker Wotherspoon and Alex Alexeyev to contracts. All were $2 million or less (though Mantha could push his salary higher through bonuses) and all were for one-year, besides Brazeau getting a second year.
Silly season has, in fact, been more like sleepy season so far. Pittsburgh picked up veteran defensemen Connor Clifton and Matt Dumba — both of whom with $3+ million cap hits are considered a little overpaid for their contributions. Both are also in the final seasons of their contracts in 2025-26. There’s been nothing of note on the front to trade Rust, Rickard Rakell or Erik Karlsson — and despite some chatter and loose “rumors”, no one really seems to know when or if those transactions are coming this summer. The team has stocked up on enough warm NHL bodies that they are setup to make moves to trade any or all of their veterans on the trade block away, but it hasn’t happened yet.
With the past out of the way, here’s what is to come:
Step 9: Waiting for the big summer move
As mentioned above, a big trade could fall from the clouds at seemingly any moment — yet with no guarantee that it will happen. That’s the odd status of summer. In some ways, it’s not dissimilar from the circumstances of the 2023 Karlsson trade that brought the defender to Pittsburgh and happened relatively late in the summer cycle on August 6th. But for now, we wait. Given how Kyle Dubas has operated, any big trade will likely come out of just about thin air without much prior lead up to the announcement of the completed deal. So, as we have learned in the past few months, don’t hold your breath while knowing it could happen at just about any time.
Step 10: New alternate jersey
This one has kind of faded off the radar, but at some point there’s going to be a jersey announcement of what next season’s alternate jersey will be. In 2023-24, the Pens wore the alternate on every Thursday home game. Last year in 2024-25, it was every Tuesday home game. Details on the future use are still to be announced.
Step 11: Prospects Challenge 2025 in Buffalo
The first game will be Friday Sept 12 when the Pens play the Boston Bruins prospects in Buffalo. Pittsburgh will have a crew playing on Sunday Sept 14 (vs Columbus) and Monday Sept 15 (vs Buffalo) to round out the typical three-game event.
Step 12: Training camp
There’s no word on the exact dates, but last year’s camp opened on September 18th. That’s probably a good approximation for this year’s festivities to start ahead of the exhibition schedule that begins on Monday Sept 22 with a game in Montreal.