August is generally the tipping point for the NHL off-season. General managers and personnel who get precious little time with their families during the season set aside time now to be human rather than chasing a Stanley Cup. However, it was also Aug. 6, 2023, when the Penguins traded for Erik Karlsson.

So, the offseason is not necessarily over, but as Elliotte Friedman noted on his mid-summer 32 Thoughts last weekend, nothing is imminent with the Penguins trade talks.

That’s both expected and odd, but the Penguins’ transactions have begun to feel like my grandmother’s basement in North Huntington. My grandparents, who passed more than 20 years ago, lived in one of those small two-bedroom postwar housing plans that show up in movies and retro TV shows. And lining the shelves in the dusty and musty basement were cans of food. Cans and cans and cans of food. If the world had indeed gone to hell on Dec. 31, 1999, I was hiding out in that basement.

Wedged around the food that had probably expired before my birth were trinkets, knick-knacks, and uncollectibles from every yard sale from here to Erie.

And so, too, do the Penguins have lots of cans, and some that have passed their expiration date. Using rough numbers, the Penguins have 20 forwards who have played or could play in the NHL this season, and the defense group is 12 deep with three goalies … and Sergei Murashov on the way.

So, when we asked Penguins fans and PHN readers what they wanted to discuss this week, it all led back to variations of the roster gluts.

Yes, there are far too many bodies for far too few spaces. Whether Penguins’ general manager Kyle Dubas got caught between strategies of trading away veterans but found no suitors, or whether that simply isn’t a concern because Dubas will waive a large number of them, is an answer in waiting.

Last season’s training camp and preseason were the most competitive in years, but next month could be chaos personified as new coach Dan Muse attempts to get a hold of his team with new ideas and systems, while also evaluating a dozen roster battles.

We received a lot of questions about what the Penguins will do with this veteran, that defenseman, or the goalies, and the blunt truth is: we really don’t know. We can project that Arturs Silovs will be the backup goalie and that the coaches will give Harrison Brunicke every opportunity to make the team. Still, their success is far less of a certainty than grandma having lunch ready at noon.

Projections

We’ve done a few projections over the last month, but for the summer crowd to catch up, the goalie tandem is most likely Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs, who was acquired from the Vancouver Canucks for a fourth-round pick.

Dubas told the PDOcast podcast that the team had the necessary runway for Silovs, who was roughed up in 10 NHL games last season, but led his AHL Abbotsford Canucks to the Calder Cup championship with stellar netminding.

We think Brunicke will make the NHL squad, at least for a few months. If things go well, he stays, but if things are sketchy, he can be loaned to Team Canada for the World Junior Championships, then returned to the WHL for a few months. If he plays nine NHL games or fewer, he will not burn a year of his entry-level contract.

(But even if he does burn a year of his ELC, given the soaring values of second contracts in the NHL, there could be advantages to his contract expiring before he hits his full stride.)

The right-side battle between Connor Clifton, Matt Dumba, and Jack St. Ivany will be close, and player performance will determine the results, and the conclusion of the Erik Karlsson situation will determine if Dubas keeps one or two of them on the NHL roster.

However, while we can dabble with a good idea on the back end, it’s not really possible to project the forwards. If the Penguins are a youth movement, there will be some very financial ramifications to keeping players such as Tristan Broz or Filip Hallander over established veterans such as Danton Heinen, Kevin Hayes, or even Philip Tomasino.

As noted, Puckpedia.com currently lists the Penguins with 13 forwards on the NHL roster, but not among those 13 are Rutger McGroarty, Ville Koivunen, Broz, Hallander, Joona Koppanen, and Rafael Harvey-Pinard.

In a true youth movement, all but Koppanen would be assured an NHL sweater, with Avery Hayes chasing the dream and Sam Poulin getting a final shot at establishing himself in the big show.

It does beg the question if Dubas was left hanging on the trade market. If nothing changes between now and mid-September, we are also quite curious about what happens next.