Justin Brazeau scored 18 goals with 36 points last season in a career breakout but does not appear to have a lineup position or even a roster spot this season. <\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>\u2018 packed roster and shortened NHL preseason, which is down to four games, means multiple players with NHL resumes and expectations will be jettisoned, and it will be more difficult for younger players not expected to make the roster to force their way into the fold.<\/p>\n Even on defense, where Harrison Brunicke<\/a> seemed on track to grab a roster spot, he is blocked by at least one defenseman and possibly two. But Penguins fans have been curiously awaiting decisions through the entirety of the offseason. <\/p>\n 3 Penguins Thoughts<\/p>\n 1. Dubas Divided<\/p>\n The moves have served both sides of the Penguins rebuild. A new contract for 40-year-old Evgeni Malkin<\/a> and signing 35-year-old free agent defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk support the push to be competitive now and remain competitive. <\/p>\n After all, even Dubas stated in his email correspondence with a handful of local outlets, including PHN, after Malkin\u2019s signing, that none of the younger players had seasons that meant Malkin was blocking them. <\/p>\n And then Dubas acquired 26-year-old righty defenseman Kaedan Korczak via trade for Parker Wotherspoon, and even held back $500,000 of Wotherspoon\u2019s paltry $1 million salary cap hit. Korczak presumably takes the right side ahead of Brunicke. And in seeming contradiction to his statement that Malkin wouldn\u2019t be blocking any younger player, Dubas delivered an eight-year, $32 million contract to Ville Koivunen. <\/p>\n Dubas made the appropriate move to acquire 24-year-old Nick Robertson from the Toronto Maple Leafs and signed the RFA to a two-year, $6.5 million deal. But rather than a spot for 25-and-under forwards Elmer Soderblom<\/a>, who showed quite well with the Penguins after being acquired from Detroit before the trade deadline, Rutger McGroarty, Hendrix Lapierre, Avery Hayes, or even Robertson, Dubas signed struggling 30-year-old winger Andrei Kuzmenko to a one-year deal.<\/p>\n On the grand scale, Dubas has set up his team for a clean sweep in 2027-28 or 2028-29. There will necessarily be numerous veteran departures over the next 24 months. Still, by acquiring young players beside veterans this summer, it is hard to see the extra runway that the younger players will need.<\/p>\n The view from here is confused. On one side, Dubas has very well executed the opening stages of a youth movement. On the other hand, he has blocked his own work. <\/p>\n 2. Trade Help?<\/p>\n For all of the big-name trade talk in the 2026 offseason, only Jason Robertson seemed to be on the Penguins\u2019 radar. <\/p>\n However, is a three-way trade possible in which the Penguins profit from helping a team such as Vegas or Minnesota acquire Dylan Larkin by holding salary? <\/p>\n Short answer? No. <\/p>\n First, Larkin has five years remaining on his deal, which would mean the Penguins hold salary for that long. Second, could any team pay the four-asset price tag that has become the standard ask for star players AND pay the Penguins to help? That becomes prohibitively expensive. <\/p>\n Could the Penguins become an equal in the three-team trade that provides assets in exchange for more advantageous players? <\/p>\n It\u2019s not a hard no, but it\u2019s unlikely. The Penguins just don\u2019t have the assets that have tempted other teams in big-game talks. <\/p>\n Former Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman was thought to be interested in Bryan Rust, but he\u2019s out, and the next Red Wings GM will be a numbers person. Detroit is treading water, and it doesn\u2019t seem Rust would put them over the top. <\/p>\n The same sort of answers apply to other high-profile players. <\/p>\n 3. Short Camp, Big WBS Salaries?<\/p>\n Dubas has filled the Penguins roster with potentials to compete for open spots during his tenure. However, the 84-game schedule and halved number of preseason games create a different situation. <\/p>\n Dubas has largely done his job, and soon the pressure will shift to coach Dan Muse and staff to put together the proper lineup and roster quickly, but they\u2019ll have only a couple of weeks and three preseason games. And just to increase the degree of difficulty, Sidney Crosby and other veterans like to play in two. <\/p>\n Reputation, conditioning, and the start of camp will be enormously important for the players on the bubble. Muse will have to sift through the adrenaline starts; last fall, a few players who didn\u2019t stick on the NHL roster, including Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Matt Dumba, had attention-grabbing starts to camp.<\/p>\n There are a couple of veterans in trouble. Brazeau and his $1.5 million salary could be out of luck. So, too, could Robertson. Or Koivunen. And don\u2019t forget Ryan Graves and the remaining three years of his contract with a $4.5 million cap hit. <\/p>\n Indeed, there could be several seven-figure contracts on the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins this season.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags:kyle dubas<\/a> Penguins Analysis<\/a> penguins offseason analysis<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a><\/p>\n Categorized:Penguins Analysis<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Brazeau scored 18 goals with 36 points last season in a career breakout but does not appear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[7563,385,114405,344185,1790,99],"class_list":["post-811064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-kyle-dubas","tag-nhl","tag-penguins-analysis","tag-penguins-offseason-analysis","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811064","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=811064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}