When you look at the totality of the roster on paper, I think there’s enough talent for this team to finish 4th in the division and as a playoff card via a Wild Card spot.
At full strength, here’s how I see the roster shaping up
Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith – Evgeni Malkin – Bryan Rust
Matt Nieto – Lars Eller – Noel Acciari
Rem Pitlick – Drew O’Connor – Vinnie Hinostroza
Marcus Pettersson – Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves – Kris Letang
P.O. Joseph – Ty Smith
Tristan Jarry
Alex Nedeljkovic
Objectively I think you can pencil in the Carolina Hurricanes and the New Jersey Devils at the top of the division. The New York Rangers are returning the majority of their team and made some decent additions this offseason and should benefit from a coaching change to the point where having them in third seems likely at a bare minimum.
Then you have fourth place which will be a fight between the Penguins and the New York Islanders, a team that is virtually unchanged from last year. I guess you can say that they have Bo Horvat to start the season, but based on the rest of their roster they will go as far as Ilya Sorokin can take them. And that brings up the one area that is of concern for the Penguins which is between the pipes. This is nothing new, but I will say that I think that the potential of Nedeljkovic is worth gambling on with DeSmith no longer around. Things didn’t go well for him in Detroit, and while the sample with Carolina was small, he showed flashes of brilliance. In a backup role he may be able to find himself, and if things don’t work out they will just move on and find someone else.
Mike Sullivan is a good coach, and Kyle Dubas is an aggressive general manager who understands that the goal is squeezing as much as he can out of what Crosby, Malkin, and Letang have left. The Penguins are loaded with enough offensive firepower, when healthy, that they should be able to score themselves out of problems and win enough games… even if they are a bit ugly.
Cap space is an issue right now if this team does struggle from the start, but we saw how Dubas opened up room in the Karlsson trade even though he took on the biggest contract in the deal, and I imagine he is already calculating ways to open up space so the Penguins can make additions if things are dicey out of the gate. The Penguins missed the playoffs last year, but I think they’ll be back this year. If they somehow miss it is going to be close, but there’s more to like about this team than hate.
Prediction for Season: 4th in Metropolitan Division, Wild Card Team
Stats via Evolving-Hockey unless otherwise noted. Financial data via Cap Friendly.