Next week is the NHL entry draft, and with it will come a lot of trades and movement. The Pittsburgh Penguins first step to setting up their team for 2015-16 starts then. And then, with July 1 and free agency another step will happen,
There's any number of possibilities and scenarios, but here's mine.
I tried to keep it somewhat realistic for moves that are A) possible and B) something that the team would actually consider, given management tendencies and leanings.
Without further a due, here's a link to my roster courtesy of Hockeys Cap, with screenshots detailing the changes below
The biggest trade, I fully admit I borrowed from Ryan Wilson at Hockeybuzz. It makes sense for both teams - Vancouver saves over a million bucks and bolsters their center depth with Brandon Sutter. The Penguins add the top-6 winger they need in Radim Vrbata. Both players are UFA next summer, so it makes a lot of sense. Vancouver can fill Vrbata's wing spot with younger players like Zack Kassian or Jake Virtanen.
The next trade makes logical sense, Arizona is sitting $16 million under the salary floor and they could use a good NHL player (and NHL salary). Enter Nick Spaling who will be a good player for their bottom six. For the Pens, they get a badly needed draft pick, and clear out Spaling's $2.2 million salary for 2015-16.
All trades are an exercise if "what if" and might not be possible. But the general idea is for Pittsburgh to clear Spaling's contract to whomever is interested, and flip Sutter for a top-6 winger, one that will probably be 1 year away from UFA, just like Sutter. With other savings, the Pens have a little flexibility to add salary in this transaction, which is good because it means more potential scenarios.
The biggest assumptions are: signing UFA Carl Soderberg (likely to a 4-5 year contract) for around $4 million. And then tossing $2.75 million to Blake Comeau. Hopefully the Pens could sign Comeau for a little less, but I tried to err on the side of being conservative, to make it more realistic. There's always the possibility they could get Comeau for a little less, which could free up a little more $ for a better offer for Soderberg.
I've also signed Beau Bennett to a short deal and will bet on Scott Wilson, Oskar Sundqvist and Bryan Rust to fill out the depth positions. And those players give the Pens a lot of young legs, fresh faces and some size/speed/skill that they've lacked in the past.
This lineup would work well, my whole proposed 3rd line of Comeau-Soderberg- Pascal Dupuis could all play top-6 minutes if someone gets hurt. All are skilled enough, and/or have a good history of playing with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and Soderberg has been a ~50 point player in his 2 NHL seasons, showing the production needed to play on a top line, should it come to that.
The first line remains unchanged with David Perron in his preferred left side, Crosby in the middle and Patric Hornqvist on the right. No need to mess with a winner.
The best change is the 2nd line - Malkin gets a pure shooter and possible 30-goal guy in Vrbata and Chris Kunitz gets a chance to bounce back and open up room for the two more skilled players.
Defensively, we're going young. Ian Cole is brought back for $1.75 million, with Olli Maatta and Derrick Pouliot joining Cole in top-4 roles. Brian Dumoulin is re-signed for about $1 million and joins Ben Lovejoy on what should be a capable 3rd pair.
I've listed Niclas Andersen as the 7th defenseman, mainly as a placeholder. This could easily be Taylor Chorney, who would likely sign with the Pens for about the same cap hit (especially if it was a one-way contract).
Rob Scuderi has also been bought out, which the team might not want to do, but I see as a logical option. Even if they trade him and retain salary, for this purpose he's still counting almost $1.3 million against the cap, so it wouldn't change the overall calculus of the roster build too much.
Goalie wise it's Marc-Andre Fleury joined by Jeff Zatkoff on his friendly contract. No big surprises there.
Best of all, with cheap extras, the Pens have an extra F, an extra D and still with this math end up $1.2 million under the cap, paving the way to bank that extra cash for the deadline, and still have plenty of space to comfortably make a call-up for a short-term injury, as necessary.
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I'll be interested to see the thoughts and comments below. The main thing I tried for was to add good players not under contract next season (like Soderberg, Vrbata and Comeau) which will boost overall team depth and give more options for Crosby and Malkin to be successful.
I could see the PK as being troubled by losing Sutter, but the team is also adding Dupuis, which should help a lot. The Pens might need to use Crosby (mainly for faceoffs and a quick change) and then lean on Dupuis, Comeau and newcomers Wilson and Sundqvist to be PK'ers. A guy like Kunitz has also been an effective PK'er in the past, and since I wouldn't have Kunitz on the top power play any more, he would be open to play more minutes on the PK unit too.