PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Coming into the offseason there were a couple of roads the Pens could have traveled. A few days after free agency it’s completely clear what their plans are.
It’s about winning now, this year, with this core. It didn’t stop after committing $121.75 million to Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell on lengthy extensions. They made several other key adds over the last few days making the team even older, not younger as many suggested they needed to be after last season.
Saturday the Pens traded for 34-year-old defenseman Jeff Petry and signed soon-to-be 32-year-old defenseman Jan Rutta early into free agency.
Hextall never said the goal was to add experience. He said as the coaches and staff got together in the offseason to evaluate their team. They needed to make some changes after getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs for a fourth straight season.
“We wanted to get heavier on the back end,” Hextall said. “I think with Petry and (free agent Jan) Rutta we accomplished that. We wanted to improve our transition game. We felt like with Jeff (Petry) and Ty Smith, they will add some puck skill we wanted to add to our group. Between the two objectives we got a little bit of both with these moves.”
The moves were sending 28-year-old defenseman Mike Matheson to Montreal for Petry. They sent 25-year-old defenseman John Marino to the Devils for Smith (a 22-year-old defenseman with options left).
Matheson at times last year was good enough to be paired with Letang. He’s a lefty shot who scored 11 goals with 20 assists and a plus 12 in 74 games. It appeared as if he hadn’t played his best hockey yet and seemed to fit in the Pens system.
Marino rose from sixth round pick in 2015 to getting a six-year, $26.4 million contract in January 2021. The 6’1” defenseman was the Pens ironman on the blue line last season playing 81 games with a goal and 24 assists. He was also a member of the team’s penalty kill, but plagued by inconsistent play parts of last season.
It wasn’t necessarily a trade they would have made in a non-salary cap world, but they needed to clear some money. Hextall mentioned in the case of both players, often you have to trade good players to improve your situation.
“We certainly valued Mike, but we feel like Jeff at this point is a little better fit for us,” Hextall said. “He can play all situations. He can log big minutes. We felt like our right side with Letang and Petry and Rutta is extremely strong and we have Chad and Friedman. We you have an opportunity to had a player of Jeff Petry’s magnitude, we felt like it was a good fit for our group.”
You could imagine it was an interesting day for the Pens best defensive prospect. Hearing there were trades had to excite PO Joseph, but while moving two, they added two defensemen, including Smith, who is a lefty.
No D-man was more consistent last year than Chad Ruhwedel, playing in 78 games with a career four goals and 13 points. Mark Friedman, 26, battled through some injuries to play in 26 games with five points. So where do the Pens sit on the blue line entering camp, barring another move?
Potential pairings
Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Joseph/Smith-Ruuta
Right shots -Letang, Petry, Rutta, Rudwedel, Friedman
Left shots-Dumoulin, Pettersson, Smith, Joseph
“We will wait until training camp,” Hextall said. “We have nine competent NHL defenseman. We feel really good about the depth of it.”
With these moves they are also under the salary cap, which in itself is a bit of an offseason miracle given the team kept all the aforementioned players and even added veterans.
Related
It’s not younger, but did the Pens get better enough to make them a contender for a final run at the Stanley Cup? Camp starts in two months.