Salary Cap: Pens Salary thread: It has been 0 days since our last injury

[Empoleon8771]

Seems to be a running theme with young Penguins blueliners. Hell of a first season, followed by a whole lotta stumbling. I wonder why that is. Maybe too much of an increase in workload and/or matchups. Weird though.

I actually don't think this is it, Pettersson's role has gotten less and less over the last few years. You can look at ice time and see that clearly, but in terms of QoC, he's getting way easier matchups now. The big reason I think Pettersson has fallen off a lot is that he's getting much easier minutes now and his results aren't better than they were in the past.

His xGF%Rel in 2021-2022 was pretty much the same as it was in 2019-2020, but Pettersson was playing in a decently tough top-4 role in 2019-2020 and was playing in a Ruhwedel type of role in 2021-2022. He looks much worse based on the eye test, his results aren't improved with much easier matchups and the coaching staff has seemingly very little faith in him.

Marino was at least top-4 quality even with his decline over the past few years, Pettersson is just a superbly not good player anymore.

 

[Pancakes]

MP was fine overall last year imo. He had a rough stretch or two, but on balance he was pretty decent.

I'm not that worried about him. I just hate that we're in cap hell and can't bring up Smith.

Erod came in at 2 million. Keeping him at that instead of Kapanen at 3 I'm pretty sure makes us cap compliant lol. And then Smith is up and we have a better team. I don't think Kapanen is going to reward the Pens for keeping him at that price.

Oh well. Woulda coulda shoulda.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

MP's most recent post season gives some semblance of hope re: improvement. I mean... for what little one round of play is worth. But by and large he seems to be another case of a guy that flashed some stuff early on and has sort of just... settled into rank mediocrity since. And I don't even dislike him as much as some.

I would wonder aloud at the team's approach and instruction here considering that an early peak followed by regression is seemingly a common thread on this team. But of course the coaching staff is the very best so that can't be it.

 

[pistolpete11]

I agree with you on what you're saying about Smith and POJ here, but the big area of disagreement I have is that I don't think Pettersson is any safer or any better of an option for that role. He looked really, really bad in the pre-season. His game against Detroit was downright heinous.

In a perfect world, none of Smith, POJ or Pettersson are with Petry. Ideally, you could pull off another Rutta type of LD (someone like Soucy) and have him play with Petry. Petry has generally had the most success with physical defensive D according to Habs fans (so guys like Edmundson, Chiarot and such), so I think the perfect situation is that you get someone like that for Petry.

Just as I don't put much stock into how a young guy plays in the preseason, I don't put much stock into how a 6 year vet plays in the preseason. We know what Petts is. Petts is bland 4/5D who has some obvious flaws, but generally speaking has provided average results on the ice over multiple years with the team.

I agree a Soucy type would be great, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that to happen, especially mid-season coming off an offseason where they already made some major changes (and IMO improvements) to the D. If Hextall can pull it off, great, but I think this is the D-corp we will have and I'm fine with that.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Marino is the real weird one, imo. Dude was playing like one of the premiere defensive blueliners in his rookie season, looked for all the world like a rock solid defensive guy for the next decade-plus. Turned into shit real fast.

Maatta had struggles with injury and serious illness. That's pretty easy to pinpoint. Might not have been the entire reason he fell off but a huge factor, obviously.

Petts was solid, surprisingly so considering the Pens got him for nothing (Sprong sucks shit). Then he just kinda turned into shit a la Marino, but without anything close to the same peak.

There's been rumblings that the style/system leads to guys being in more vulnerable spots, leading to more injuries. I wonder if it also leaves defensemen out to dry more often than not and does no real favors for guys' stats/analytics. Really feels like the forwards have either been supremely lazy in coming back deep defensively for years, or coached to play that way. Maybe I'm just way off. Wouldn't be the first, or millionth time.

 

[SEALBound]

Makes sense Montreal would have wanted Matheson over Marino or Petts for Petry. But then Hextall moved ANOTHER one, presumably for space.

Now, ranking the players, obviously Petts would have been the most desirable one to move but would we really want a defensive pairing of Matheson-Petry? Or Marino on the 3rd pairing? Given who their target was, it actually makes the most sense, to me, to keep Pettersson over Matheson and Marino.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Makes sense Montreal would have wanted Matheson over Marino or Petts for Petry. But then Hextall moved ANOTHER one, presumably for space.

Now, ranking the players, obviously Petts would have been the most desirable one to move but would we really want a defensive pairing of Matheson-Petry? Or Marino on the 3rd pairing? Given who their target was, it actually makes the most sense, to me, to keep Pettersson over Matheson and Marino.

If we knew we were getting Petry, which presumably we did, Marino had to go. As a bonus he actually returned things of value whereas we would have had to pay to unload Petts. It makes sense

 

[PensandCaps]

Marino didn't turn to shit, Even though he regressed, he was still a superb defensive top 4 guy.

Just after that Rookie year i expected him to turn into a top pairing guy, Being a good top 4 D is still pretty good though.

 

[Peat]

I've already pointed this out and @Peat told me not to engage with clear trolls who argue this, but I legitimately do not see an argument for this year's team being worse than last year's team that is anything beyond "they're old so they'll be bad".

You can't be making legitimate comments if you're simultaneously saying that the team and players the Penguins had last year sucked, and now they're going to suck this year because they lost those players who sucked.

Some of youse just can't resist picking at the scab of truly illogical opinions



Anyhoo, I

a) Don't care how Pettersson did this pre-season

b) Feel reasonably okay with Pettersson if you divorce him from his price-tag and think there's an argument that past results show that putting him with a more physical guy will serve him better than Marino or Schultz. I think he mostly had a good season last season apart from that very rough patch after the deadline, but he rallied well in the playoffs. I have no problems with him playing a lot of games here, even if a tendency to inconsistency, lack of special teams utility, and unproven ability to routinely play against the best heavily limit his upside here.

c) But will always be in favour of moving him the moment you can given his price tag. Don't care about the risk. People can say "but what if Dumo is injured/sucks" but the answer to that is Pettersson has shown zero ability to fill the Dumo role, he just takes up a lot of cap you can use for exploring alternatives. His absence would hurt depth but that's it.

d) I'm a bigger POJ fan than most, and think POJ can be as good as Pettersson - possibly quite quickly if he sorts out his reads, which realistically will happen quicker (if it happens) for being given time - but I'd feel super uneasy about him replacing Pettersson with POJ if it was a playoff game tomorrow. But it's not. It's game one of the regular season.

e) I think Willy raises a good point about how a lot of guys start on fire here but struggle to maintain, but I recall reading a piece by Jack Han in which he says that's pretty common as NHL forwards make dmen start second guessing. Besides, I'm not sure Pettersson is hugely one of those. I thought most of last season he was as good as he's ever been, and his individual production and expected goals back that up. The biggest example is John Marino, and you had the beat reporters talking about his attitude frustrating people pretty much from the moment he got that contract.

f) All talk of "but what if we moved Pettersson" is more academic than asking what would have happened if Napoleon had machine guns, and I'm not sure the idea we could have moved him but didn't is wildly more realistic either.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

e) I think Willy raises a good point about how a lot of guys start on fire here but struggle to maintain, but I recall reading a piece by Jack Han in which he says that's pretty common as NHL forwards make dmen start second guessing. Besides, I'm not sure Pettersson is hugely one of those. I thought most of last season he was as good as he's ever been, and his individual production and expected goals back that up. The biggest example is John Marino, and you had the beat reporters talking about his attitude frustrating people pretty much from the moment he got that contract.

Even though I'm clearly taking a bit of a dig at the staff I honestly think it's more an example of the prior FO jumping the gun on guys way too early and rolling the Brinx truck up to their door way too soon. I think things are getting better but there has been some uneven talent evaluation on this team for a while IMO. And I still am not totally sold on the pro scouting considering some of the miscues over the years.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Even though I'm clearly taking a bit of a dig at the staff I honestly think it's more an example of the prior FO jumping the gun on guys way too early and rolling the Brinx truck up to their door way too soon. I think things are getting better but there has been some uneven talent evaluation on this team for a while IMO. And I still am not totally sold on the pro scouting considering some of the miscues over the years.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with this.

Rutherford gave Pettersson a pretty massive extension (or agreed to give him one) after 1 season where he was playing with JJ. Same thing with Marino, he gave Marino a huge extension after 1 year. The Marino one ended up fine, because I still think he's a $4.4 million caliber defenseman with his current 2nd pair level. But the Pettersson deal was way too aggressive and way too soon for a player like that.

Dumoulin didn't even get his big extension until after he was a top pair D on back to back cup winners, and he still made only a bit more than Pettersson made.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Yeah, I absolutely agree with this.

Rutherford gave Pettersson a pretty massive extension (or agreed to give him one) after 1 season where he was playing with JJ. Same thing with Marino, he gave Marino a huge extension after 1 year. The Marino one ended up fine, because I still think he's a $4.4 million caliber defenseman with his current 2nd pair level. But the Pettersson deal was way too aggressive and way too soon for a player like that.

Dumoulin didn't even get his big extension until after he was a top pair D on back to back cup winners, and he still made only a bit more than Pettersson made.

Yeah the whole "handshake agreement" with MP was asinine.

That's not how this works, Jim.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Even though I'm clearly taking a bit of a dig at the staff I honestly think it's more an example of the prior FO jumping the gun on guys way too early and rolling the Brinx truck up to their door way too soon. I think things are getting better but there has been some uneven talent evaluation on this team for a while IMO. And I still am not totally sold on the pro scouting considering some of the miscues over the years.

For sure. JR loved to throw big contracts at guys without any real reason to do so. Signed JJ to an absurd deal because he drafted/liked the guy--ignoring like a decade of dogshit hockey from the guy ("I know the *real* reason he was benched" etc). Signed Tanev to that bonkers deal that sort of helped f*** up the market for 3rd/4th liners. Petts took a bridge deal in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" thing that lead to JR, again, giving him a bonkers deal. Marino's deal was handed out immediately following a stellar rookie year, which was again--stellar, but y'know, you don't sign guys to half a decade long deals at relatively significant cap hits without a little more evidence. Especially considering Marino really started to stumble down the stretch and in the playoffs that rookie season,

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

For sure. JR loved to throw big contracts at guys without any real reason to do so. Signed JJ to an absurd deal because he drafted/liked the guy. Signed Tanev to that bonkers deal that sort of helped f*** up the market for 3rd/4th liners. Petts took a bridge deal in a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" thing that lead to JR, again, giving him a bonkers deal. Marino's deal was handed out immediately following a stellar rookie year, which was again--stellar, but y'know, you don't sign guys to half a decade long deals at relatively significant cap hits without a little more evidence. Especially considering Marino really started to stumble down the stretch and in the playoffs that rookie season,

Yep. I have to temper a lot of my criticisms of this team at times with the knowledge that they will be paying for JR's sins for years, yet. Hell JJ's buyout is kind of the reason they are where they are right now.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Yep. I have to temper a lot of my criticisms of this team at times with the knowledge that they will be paying for JR's sins for years, yet. Hell JJ's buyout is kind of the reason they are where they are right now.

JR made a lot of really dumb, impulse decisions after the second of the back to backs. Dude thought he was Midas and everything he touched would turn to gold. Resulted in a whole lotta wasted, premium assets and a whole lotta "extra million or two here and there" that added up to a big chunk, and prevented the team from making serious runs at any legitimate upgrades or bigger names.

Shame.

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

I don't think the Pens have recently tried to trade MP. I think they tried back when they were doing the Petry move. They wanted to get rid of him instead of MM, but Montreal wouldn't bite on that. So we're stuck with MP.

Pretty sure right now Hextall has tried (and failed, apparently) to move POJ. So now Smith is stuck in WBS until Hextall can either find a taker for POJ or maybe change his mind and try to move someone else off the roster.

A third option would be to try to sneak POJ through waivers after teams have decided on their opening day lineups. So Smith might spend a bit of time in WBS until Hextall feels like he can try sneaking POJ through waivers.

POJ won't 'sneak through waivers". They already did a trial balloon with Z and it didn't pan out

 

[Peat]

Even though I'm clearly taking a bit of a dig at the staff I honestly think it's more an example of the prior FO jumping the gun on guys way too early and rolling the Brinx truck up to their door way too soon. I think things are getting better but there has been some uneven talent evaluation on this team for a while IMO. And I still am not totally sold on the pro scouting considering some of the miscues over the years.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with this.

Rutherford gave Pettersson a pretty massive extension (or agreed to give him one) after 1 season where he was playing with JJ. Same thing with Marino, he gave Marino a huge extension after 1 year. The Marino one ended up fine, because I still think he's a $4.4 million caliber defenseman with his current 2nd pair level. But the Pettersson deal was way too aggressive and way too soon for a player like that.

Dumoulin didn't even get his big extension until after he was a top pair D on back to back cup winners, and he still made only a bit more than Pettersson made.

Slightly devil's advocate but I'm okay with the way Rutherford gambled on handing out big long contracts to players the moment they broke out.

The loss is Pettersson. They don't fulfil it and you're stuck with them. It's annoying but not the end of the world.

The usual result is Marino and Maatta, or Dumo. They more or less stick with it and you can trade them for an okay return when you need rid of them because they're a little pricy for what they do, or they just stick there the whole time at reasonable value.

The win is what we got with Guentzel and Rust, or what Nashville did with Josi. Undercosted players for a very long time.

And the payout on the win hugely outweighs the pain of the small losses. I guess the pain of the big losses, like Jack Johnson, is pretty big... but even there, I'd rather have the philosophy applied to Guentzel and Johnson than have been able to lose JJ for free and had to re-negotiate with Guentzel. Besides, it's a lot safer when not applied to old farts.

I think the real flaw was not being able to bring in guys who complimented each other because he had the money tied up in guys with very similar skillsets.

 

[Pancakes]

JR aside I am pretty happy with how Hextall has managed the team. I disagree with the segment here that wants Sullivan fired so I'm completely fine with him still being here.

The only moves Hextall has made that I really don't like are the Kapanen and Carter moves. I don't think Kapanen is going to reward the Pens' for their faith in him. I hope I'm wrong and he puts up 20 goals this season, but I think he'll be a floaty disappointment again. And as for Carter, keeping him over McCann was a mistake. This team desperately needed youth then and it still does now. The Pens could have made McCann's contract work and they probably wouldn't have lost Carter either. I imagine in that scenario that Seattle claims Blueger instead which would have been preferable I think to how things turned out, much as I like Blueger.

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

Makes sense Montreal would have wanted Matheson over Marino or Petts for Petry. But then Hextall moved ANOTHER one, presumably for space.

Now, ranking the players, obviously Petts would have been the most desirable one to move but would we really want a defensive pairing of Matheson-Petry? Or Marino on the 3rd pairing? Given who their target was, it actually makes the most sense, to me, to keep Pettersson over Matheson and Marino.

Math-Petry would have been fine. Good hockey players tend to figure it out.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

JR made a lot of really dumb, impulse decisions after the second of the back to backs. Dude thought he was Midas and everything he touched would turn to gold. Resulted in a whole lotta wasted, premium assets and a whole lotta "extra million or two here and there" that added up to a big chunk, and prevented the team from making serious runs at any legitimate upgrades or bigger names.

Shame.

Dude was just a cowboy with a shotgun, ya know? It was what the team needed at first considering he was willing to do the work the prior GM would rather not and instead continue sitting on his hands and simply hope Sid/Geno would make it happen on their own while he collected US defensemen. But much like a Therrien-type coach... that kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants shit has a shelf life. I have no doubt that by the end JR was listening to very few people around him (as evidenced by the gutting of the FO) and was just kinda doing what he wanted day to day.

Hell he even said that he liked to give players a little extra on every contract and GM's a little extra on every deal just so everyone felt great about things and his peers would keep picking up the phone. Brilliant strategy, guy.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Dude was just a cowboy with a shotgun, ya know? It was what the team needed at first considering he was willing to do the work the prior GM would rather not and instead continue sitting on his hands and simply hope Sid/Geno would make it happen on their own while he collected US defensemen. But much like a Therrien-type coach... that kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants shit has a shelf life. I have no doubt that by the end JR was listening to very few people around him (as evidenced by the gutting of the FO) and was just kinda doing what he wanted day to day.

Hell he even said that he liked to give players a little extra on every contract and GM's a little extra on every deal just so everyone felt great about things and his peers would keep picking up the phone. Brilliant strategy, guy.

"Hey, the whole hockey world knows Kapanen is gonna be your cap casualty, Dubas. What do you want for him? I drafted him, love the kid, had his dad and loved him too."

"Let me think first, Jim."

"A first? We have 15 overall."

"Uhhh, yeah."

"How about arguably our best forward prospect too?"

"File the paperwork, Jim. Pleasure doin' business with you." *hangs up immediately*

Math-Petry would have been fine. Good hockey players tend to figure it out.

HARD disagree. That pairing would've been an absolute f***ing circus.

Fun as shit to watch, though. No denying that.

 

[Peat]

JR aside I am pretty happy with how Hextall has managed the team. I disagree with the segment here that wants Sullivan fired so I'm completely fine with him still being here.

The only moves Hextall has made that I really don't like are the Kapanen and Carter moves. I don't think Kapanen is going to reward the Pens' for their faith in him. I hope I'm wrong and he puts up 20 goals this season, but I think he'll be a floaty disappointment again. And as for Carter, keeping him over McCann was a mistake. This team desperately needed youth then and it still does now. The Pens could have made McCann's contract work and they probably wouldn't have lost Carter either. I imagine in that scenario that Seattle claims Blueger instead which would have been preferable I think to how things turned out, much as I like Blueger.

I'll always have mild 'what ifs' about what would have happened if they'd believed in McCann as a top six wing. I thought he did well there.

But since they didn't, and since Seattle don't either (although Hakstol is a fool, so...) I can only shrug at that. All the talent but so little of it on show when the game was tight. My only regret with McCann is not keeping him through the expansion draft process and finding better value for him after.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

McCann strikes me much the same as Kapanen in many ways TBH. And I am reluctant to make sweeping judgements based on one season on a shitshow team where SOMEONE had to put points up.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

McCann and Kap are both supremely one-dimensional, third line guys, imo. The difference is McCann's got an elite shot and actually produces at a good clip, albeit regular season only. Kap just skates real fast, that's it--that's all he's got. They're both streaky as f***, and pretty whatever guys though.

Only thing I would've done differently is expose Carter and protect McCann--just to shop/trade McCann without the impending pressure of the expansion draft. Don't really give a single f*** that the team "lost" McCann and Tanev, tbh. No real clue how or why anyone does if I'm being honest.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I know I praised the deal in Kapanen's first season but I still can't believe JR traded a 1st rounder for him.

The Zucker deal made sense and Zucker just fell off a bit due to injuries. They bought a bit high on him, but the price they paid was reasonable for the caliber of player Zucker was at the time. But Kapanen? Dude was a middle-6 tweener that put up about 45 points while playing pretty exclusively with Auston Matthews. He was never a legitimate top-6 forward for the Leafs, but JR paid for him like he thought he was a top-6 forward.

The galaxy brain JR had to go through to value Kapanen at a 1st and a decent prospect while valuing McCann way lower makes no sense to me. Those two were effectively the same exact player, Kapanen just got more opportunities in Toronto than McCann got in Florida or Pittsburgh.