NHL Rumors: Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Seattle Kraken

The Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t get the secondary scoring they needed

Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now: The Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t get the scoring from their middle six like they had hoped from the likes of Rickard Rakell and Reilly Smith.

Should the Penguins be looking to move Rakell? Maybe not. He can play both sides and has scored 28 goals and put up 60 points before. Those were his numbers when he was healthy the previous year. For most of this year, he wore a shoulder brace.

The Seattle Kraken have some assets and cap space to use to their advantage before the draft and free agency

Alison Lukan: Seattle Kraken GM Ron Francis when asked if they’re getting close to the point where they can look at trading prospects or draft picks to improve their NHL roster.

Francis said that they’ve had 28 picks over the last three drafts and currently have nine picks this year.

“So, I’m not saying we’re going to trade them all, but I’m also not going to say we’re going to draft them all. We certainly will look to use some of that draft capital if we can, similar to what we did in the first offseason with Bjorkstrand. If there’s something that makes our team better, then we’re happy to do that.

We’ll look at every angle and the beauty is we have the cap space, so we will look at free agents; we’ll look at possible trades with other teams, very much similar to what we did in year one. We have the draft capital, as we talked about earlier, to throw those into deals and move things. We’re not afraid to do something if the right person is there to help us be more successful. It’s important for us to get back on the winning track, and the goal is to get back in the playoffs next year.”