Resetting the Pittsburgh Penguins depth chart, are they one good forward away?

Probably not...After day one of free agency, it’s a very unexciting and stale looking depth chart for the Penguins.

The most hectic day of the summer for hockey has come and gone now that July 1st has passed.

The Penguins have settled into being a team of contradictions. Kyle Dubas says he wants to add a forward — but also wants his cap space. He has mentioned trying to compete again as soon as this year — but hasn’t made many obvious upgrades to what was a non-playoff team in the first place. The Pens want to build for the future and acquire more young assets — but most of what they’re accumulating won’t be pitching in before Evgeni Malkin’s contract expires in 2026.

As such, the Penguins are in weird spot right now. Whether they want to admit it or not, the team is designed to do little more in the short-term than play out the string until the contracts of their veterans become tradeable and can be replaced by others to start anew. Not a fun place to be, especially for a franchise that’s known nothing but going for it ever since the bold Marian Hossa rental in 2008.

That’s the cold reality of franchise lifecycles, which if Penguin fans hadn’t learned over the past two years they’re likely to get another lesson in “what goes up must come down” in 2024-25, based on this group.

The fringe of the roster is as flimsy as ever; maybe there’s a spot for Sam Poulin, maybe a future summer trade opens up something on its own to help facilitate that. Pittsburgh is now center-heavy after acquiring Kevin Hayes and Blake Lizotte, in their quest to flip veterans for picks a deal sending Lars Eller to a contender fits the profile of their direction. The timing on that could range from pre-season to the deadline, however.

As such, say what you will but at the least this squad is flush with quantity and an abundance of names. That sounds exciting until realizing that most of the additions (Hayes, Beauvillier, Grzelcyk) have had their individual arrows pointing way down over the last 12 or 24 months. Not the most encouraging of signs.

Is this club one good player away from going places?

Tarasenko signed a contract for $5.0 million last year and now has the shine of another Stanley Cup on him, which makes it difficult to see a pitch from the Penguins making that big of an impact on him. They have a lack of cap space and overall team talent at the moment doesn’t make for that great of a match.

But adding a player like Tarasenko sure would make the roster look better in a hurry. It would bump Drew O’Connor into a better role and then take a fringe-level player off the roster totally. If the Penguins truly do want to have a chance to make something of their 2024-25 team while they keep playing out the string to get younger and prep for the next era, they could use the help and excitement that a quality goal-scorer could bring. As of now, little has been done to freshen up what already was apparent as a stale team on the ice.