{"id":535388,"date":"2026-03-20T20:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535388\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:24:09","slug":"investigating-the-curious-potential-market-for-ryan-shea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535388\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigating the \u2018curious\u2019 potential market for Ryan Shea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Shea is such an unassuming player on the ice that in a way it\u2019s sadly fitting that his breakout season has been overshadowed by multiple teammates taking up more of the spotlight. The Penguins have gotten plenty of positive surprises this season, starting with 18-year old Ben Kindel\u2019s steady amazing play. Add in a career year out of nowhere from Anthony Mantha, a career year for Justin Brazeau, Evgeni Malkin\u2019s resurgence, Egor Chinakhov\u2019s emergence and Parker Wotherspoon bursting onto the scene and it takes a while to get down to good ol\u2019 Ryan Shea getting some attention for taking a huge step forward in 2025-26, where he\u2019s not only become a lineup regular and closing in on 30 points but also starting to receive some credit for it. Shea even got a mention in Elliotte Friedman\u2019s last 32 Thoughts<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Most of the free-agent blue-liner talk is about Darren Raddysh, for very good reason. Excellent timing \u2014 17 goals and 58 points as he needs a new contract. His numbers aren\u2019t as sexy, but I\u2019m very curious to see how the market reacts to another potential free agent, Pittsburgh\u2019s Ryan Shea. Just turned 29, having a strong season, featuring a career-high 28 points and more responsibility than ever. Tampa is very disciplined from a contract perspective. The Penguins played last summer very intelligently. You know one of my sayings: Don\u2019t fool around with happy. But will [Raddish and Shea\u2019s] best offers be where they are?<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s curiosity will be shared by many, it\u2019ll be interesting to see where future contract projections come in for Shea. He\u2019s popped some production, averaged 19 minutes this season and has a pretty impressive profile.<\/p>\n

Shea isn\u2019t particularly<\/a> adept at preventing possession zone entries or denying zone entries, but he\u2019s among the best players in the league this season at exiting the zone himself. All around, he\u2019s been a steady but unspectacular type of player that has been versatile enough to play the left or right side and has acquitted himself well up and down the lineup.<\/p>\n

That will make for an interesting market for this player. Free agency isn\u2019t always rational for defensemen, thus how Ryan Graves ends up on a $27 million contract and Wotherspoon on a $2 million total contract. Kyle Dubas signed both of those contracts, showing that the same manager can be wildly right and wrong in the area of analyzing proper value when it comes to evaluating defensemen.<\/p>\n

As Friedman partially notes, the Penguins have gotten to the place they are at now by being shrewd about the contracts they\u2019ve handed out. The Pens have avoided signing long and potentially bad contracts since that disastrous 2023 free agency cycle where Dubas signed Graves and Tristan Jarry to six and five-year contracts respectively. Other than entry level contracts with a standard three year term, Pittsburgh has dished out one or two year deals to all but one contract they\u2019ve signed since 2023, including Shea himself who is working off a one season extension. (Blake Lizotte\u2019s three-year extension being the lone exception).<\/p>\n

For next season, as of now the Pens have Wotherspoon and Sam Girard on the left side under contract. Shea and Ilya Solovyov are impending free agents. Owen Pickering has failed to establish himself in the NHL in this his draft+4 season, a very troubling indicator for first round pick defensemen. Pittsburgh\u2019s options won\u2019t be limited to Shea or no additions, but based on the depth chart and level of play provided it certainly would make sense for the team to be interested in an extension if they deemed the cost right.<\/p>\n

Shea has the most points of any left side NHL free agent defender, though he might not be the most sought after option out there with Carson Soucy, Mario Ferraro, Brett Kulak, Jeremy Lauzon and Logan Stanley all in the mix as similarly ranked mid-pair defenders that could make it to July 1st. Shea certainly will be in-line for a nice raise off his current $900k salary, though what form that comes in via years or term could be unpredictable.<\/p>\n

Whether Shea\u2019s solid season will find him a ticket to stay in Pittsburgh or change clubs with a new contract remains to be seen. The Pens will have to weigh the right price for them against what the player would accept and whether or not that fits into how they want to shape their blueline for next year. Dubas and the Pens have gone through 13 different defensemen this season, they have been comfortable shuffling players in and out of the lineup with relative frequency while using trades to bring in a constant trickle of new faces (like Kulak, Girard and Solovyov this season). Re-signing Shea would have its merits to help lock in a nice piece that can add some stability though it might require them stretching from past preferences to keep contracts short and flexibility high.<\/p>\n

The upcoming contract negotiations, whether they come with Pittsburgh before free agency or with other teams out in open free agency will finally put Shea more in the spotlight and give some shine to a player who has earned it this season. Often in the shadows, a day is coming where contract news will make Shea a spotlighted figure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Shea is such an unassuming player on the ice that in a way it\u2019s sadly fitting that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4687,385,99],"class_list":["post-535388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-analysis","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}