Ranking the Penguins’ biggest concerns entering the 2024-25 season
The Pittsburgh Penguins have some question marks for the 2024-25 NHL season. Here are five of them.
After missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs two years in a row and not really making any big moves this offseason the Pittsburgh Penguins are definitely going to have some big question marks going into the 2024-25 season.
Some of them are returning concerns. Some of them are newer. Either way let’s take a look at five of the biggest concerns and rank them based on how concerning they are for the season.
1. Goaltending
It kind of feels like there are so many other issues and concerns going into this season that goaltending is actually getting lost in the shuffle a little bit. It should be a big concern. The Penguins are bringing back the same duo from the 2023-24 season, and are giving Tristan Jarry another run as the starter.
At this point it is kind of hard to think Jarry is anything other than what he has shown us he is — a wildly inconsistent player that tends to wear down as the season goes on.
He will probably give the Penguins above average play through the first half of the season, have a save percentage in the mid .910s range, and make everybody think he is putting it together. Then as the season goes on he will likely significantly regress and not be there when you need him most come the end of the season or playoffs. It is the same thing we have seen every year, and it resulted in him losing his starting job at the end of this past season.
Can you trust him?
Can you trust Alex Nedeljkovic?
I just don’t know. It is not the best situation, and it has not been for a few years.
Their overall numbers for the 2023-24 season as a whole were about league average. They were among the worst in the league in the second half and especially over the final 25 games of the season. That will not be good enough this season.
2. Power play
It is not a stretch to say that the power play was the single biggest issue with the 2023-24 team and one of the biggest reasons they missed the playoffs.
It was not just the lack of production that hurt them. It was the fact they also had a knack for giving up the worst-timed, most back-breaking shorthanded goals in big situations. Did not score enough, gave up too many chances and goals the other way, stole momentum away from the team and never at any point looked like a cohesive, functioning unit despite having several Hall of Famers on the ice.
It is largely the same cast of players coming back this season (minus Jake Guentzel) and they have to figure it out.
They did not figure it out over 82 games a year ago.
If they can not figure it out this season it will be a similar result for the season.
A lot of the thought process behind this roster construction is dependent on this unit being a game-changer.
3. Ryan Graves’ usage
The Penguins are going to hope that Graves’ debut season was a fluke and that he can bounce back after a full year in the system and on the team.
They also really have no other choice but to hope that given his contract.
I am not optimistic that will happen.
My concern here is not just that Graves will struggle again, but that he will get too many minutes, in too big of a role, and not play well enough to justify it.
4. Scoring depth
Say this for general manager Kyle Dubas — he has a type that he likes in his bottom-six.
Defensive-minded grinders that, in the best-case scenario, will play to a 0-0 tie. If the top-six dominates and the power play excels the way it should, it might actually be a formula that can work. And I like some of the players in this year’s bottom-six more than the players they had a year ago and think some of them (looking at you, Blake Lizotte) might actually be good at what Dubas wants.
But you still need to get some offense out of your bottom-six and I am just not sure there is a lot there. At least not based on what we see on paper going into the season.
5. Erik Karlsson’s health
Karlsson’s 2023-24 debut season with the Penguins was underwhelming, at least in the sense that he was simply good instead of great.
He is one of the players that has an opportunity to be a season-changer if he bounces back with a big season.
Things are not off a great start as he is dealing with a lingering injury that has kept him from practicing. The last thing they need is for Karlsson to miss meaningful time in the regular season.