2024-25 season in review: Danton Heinen

He is back for his second stop with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Vitals

Player: Danton Heinen
Born: July 5, 1995 (29 years old)
Height: 6’2
Weight: 195 pounds
Hometown: Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Shoots: Left
Draft: Fourth-round pick in 2014 (No. 116 overall) by the Boston Bruins
2024-25 Statistics: 79 games played, nine goals, 20 assists, 29 total points
-28 games played, three goals, eight assists, 11 total points with the Pittsburgh Penguins
Contract Status: Heinen is signed through the end of the 2025-26 season with a salary cap number of $2.25 million.

Monthly Splits

via Yahoo!

Say this for Heinen: He was remarkably consistent in his production throughout the season. Always one or two goals per month, never more than six points, never less than three points, and pretty much the same player from start to finish. Was it great? Not really. Was it awful? Not quite. But you knew what you were getting each month with very little variance.

Story of the Season

Heinen’s 2024-25 season began with the Vancouver Canucks after signing a two-year, $4.5 million contract in free agency. His time with the Canucks was about what you expect to see out of Heinen based on his prior career where he provided some middle-six scoring and depth. Nothing that will change your season, but solid enough to be a regular in the NHL. Eventually he found himself back in Pittsburgh for his second stop with the Penguins. That happened when he was a part of the Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor to Vancouver trade, giving the Penguins another NHL forward that could fill out their roster for the remainder of the season (and potentially a future trade chip).

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. The ranking is out of 17 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.

Corsi For%: 52.1 (7th)
Goals For%: 54.5 (1st)
xGF%: 48.6 (12th)
Scoring Chance%: 53.3 (3rd)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 44.6 (14th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 8.2 (8th)
On-ice save%: .923 (2nd)
Goals/60: 0.37 (13th)
Assists/60: 1.50 (2nd)
Points/60: 1.87 (4th)

There are only his numbers with the Penguins, and it is quite a mixed bag of results. His actual goals-for share was the best on the team after joining the roster before the trade deadline, and he had a pretty strong share of scoring chances. But the expected goals and high-danger chances were near the bottom of the team. He did not actually score a lot of goals for himself, but his play-making and point-production during 5-on-5 play were strong.

Highlights

Questions to ponder

The questions here really come down to what the Penguins can do to boost his trade value as much as possible. What sort of role is he going to get? Who is going to center his line? Can they put him into enough offensive situations to build up some goal and point totals so he can be flipped at the deadline for a mid-round pick?

They do not need to go out and sign too many Anthony Beauvillier types this offseason because they already have a couple on the roster in Heinen and Kevin Hayes.

Ideal 2025-26

Heinen is going to be 30 years old when the 2025-26 season begins so there should not be any real secrets or surprises as to what type of player he is. He is your typical fringe middle-six winger that, if given 82 games, is probably going to score 14-16 goals, finish with 30-35 points, have some moments that make you think more is possible and some other moments where you get incredibly frustrated with him not producing more.

If he can give the Penguins something closer to the higher-end of his career averages they could probably get a Beauvillier-type of trade return for him at the deadline from a contender. That is probably the best possible outcome for everybody involved.

Bottom line

Heinen is the type of forward you will find on a lot of rebuilding teams. NHL experience. Productive enough to stick in the NHL. Cheap enough to not crush your salary cap. The type of player you might be able to trade for a second-or third-round pick in the middle of the season.