Penguins Questions That Need to Be Answered This Offseason

At 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, Graves is one of the biggest players on the ice. One of the most frustrating things about his game this season is that he simply did not use his size. He played way too soft in his own zone every time he was on the ice. He needs to be better at making stops in the defensive zone. He also needs to work on his net front presence and getting the opposition out of the way. There is no doubt he has the size to do it, but he needs to work on his strength this summer which will improve his physical game. 

Another thing that seemed to disappear from Graves’ play this season is his shoot first mentality. In Colorado and New Jersey he used to fire everything from the blue line, but he seemed to lose that this season. With five more years left on his contract, there isn’t much of a chance the Penguins will find any interested takers so all they can really do is hope he gets better.

Reilly Smith joined the Penguins last summer via a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for a 2024 third-round draft pick. Last season, he scored a total of 26 goals for the Knights and helped them win their first Stanley Cup championship. Pittsburgh needed more help on the top two lines and initially it looked like Smith was more than capable of providing that.

Smith started out the season on the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Rickard Rakell and scored six goals through the first 10 games. Starting in November, his production trailed off and he went through multiple scoring droughts and then suffered an upper-body injury in early January. He ended the season with a total of 13 goals and 27 assists. 

Smith was brought to Pittsburgh to play in the top six, but as the season went on he slid into a third line role alongside Lars Eller and Valtteri Puustinen. With an annual salary cap hit of $5 million, he simply makes too much to be in the bottom six. He has one more year left on his contract, and it will be interesting to see if Dubas decides to take a gamble on him or trade him away this summer. 

Penguins Need to Have a Productive Summer

The Penguins have some big questions to answer this summer including what direction to go in at the goalie position. Goaltender Joel Blomqvist of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins is having a good season and Dubas will continue to pay close attention to his progress. Perhaps the biggest question of the summer will be what the Penguins decide to do with Alex Nedeljkovic. Nedeljkovic started the last 13 games of the season going 8-1-3. He is largely to thank for Pittsburgh’s impressive surge at the end of their season, and as a pending free agent he will no doubt attract some attention from other teams. 

Starting goaltender Tristan Jarry continues to struggle with consistency which is a concern especially if Pittsburgh plans to be a serious contender in 2024-25. The season is over, but Dubas has a lot of work to do this summer. During the final three weeks of the year, the Penguins proved that they can still compete at a high level and could definitely be a team to watch next season.