AZ fan, how's he been developing? Always seemed like a great kid and I remember he was producing for a spurt of time last season.
I think POJ is simply following a very typical development path. People can say coaching staff blah blah blah, and he's gotta do XYZ or whatever.
But all of that is just noise and I think many people simply forget or ignore that the vast majority of Dmen who are not named Makar, Doughty, Heiskanen, Seider and other very rare & special elite Dmen prospects take about 5 years to hit the NHL full time. Couple that with the fact that the Penguins like to bring their prospects along slowly and wait until they're overripe, and that's why POJ is where he is developmentally.
He should be expected to play no higher than a #6 or #7 role this season, sharing time with Friedman in that role. POJ will be given every opportunity to be the full time #6 guy but they have Friedman there as the insulator. And in the event of injury, he'll be counted on to step up higher in the lineup. Anything more than that will be a bonus for this coming season, and the following season he should compete for a full time slot in the 3rd or possibly 2nd pair.
That is the typical development path for someone like him and what people's expectations should be. And he's perfectly on track for this. I think it's great for the team and POJ that it was a 2 year contract and by the time it expires, he should prove to be a quality NHL regular and get longer term deal.