It’s Time For Penguins GM Kyle Dubas To Make Some Calls

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins put forth one of their best efforts of the season in a 5-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers, one of the top teams in the league. And they followed that up with one of their worst performances of the season in a 5-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.

And then, on Sunday, it was an all-too-familiar example of a “coulda, shoulda, woulda” toss-up against the Tampa Bay Lightning that didn’t end up going the Penguins’ way.

If Pittsburgh’s one-month run prior to the holiday break was indicative of anything, it’s that the team is capable of more than their 18-19-8 record suggests. They are quickly falling in the Eastern Conference standings – currently at sixth in the wild card race – and have played more games than almost everyone else.

At this point, the current Penguins’ lineup is just not getting it done.

Granted, some recent injuries and uncertainties with the defensive corps and, now, their top-six forwards – Evgeni Malkin was placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury on Sunday, and Michael Bunting missed Sunday’s game against the Lightning after being involved in a car accident prior to the game – certainly aren’t helping matters.

Simply put: The Penguins have some better options in their system at the AHL level right now than what they are currently deploying at the NHL level.

So, it’s time for GM and POHO Kyle Dubas to make some calls.

Let’s take a look at each positional group and what the Penguins can do to improve each.

Forwards

At this juncture, the depth scoring that the Penguins were getting in the first half of the season has all but dried up.

Anthony Beauvillier had six goals in his first 19 games – shifting between a top-six role and a third-line role on an offensive-minded line with Blake Lizotte and Michael Bunting – and he has just three goals in 25 games since, including a healthy scratch. Lizotte had five goals and nine points in nine games during a brief stint as the team’s third-line center until he was – inexplicably – demoted to the fourth line, where he has just one goal for one point in 13 games since.

Kevin Hayes was scratched for nine games between Dec. 10 and Jan. 3, and since being put back in the lineup against Florida on Jan. 3, he has three goals in six games.

The truth is that the Penguins can get much more out of their bottom-six than they’re getting right now. Some of it has to do with deployment, and some of it has to do with personnel. Head coach Mike Sullivan seems married to the idea of a defensive, shutdown fourth line that also kills penalties. He values guys who can be deployed on special teams and who can take tough minutes away from their top lines.

While that’s a good idea in theory, it hasn’t enitrely worked out in practice: The Penguins have still surrendered a league-high 165 goals and have seen their penalty kill plummet from seventh in the league to 15th in the league at 79 percent in the nine games since the holiday break.

Yes, Matt Nieto kills penalties and is deployed in defensive situations. Same with Noel Acciari. But guess who else is?

Penguins’ prospect Vasily Ponomarev, 22, who has six goals and 19 points in his last 19 AHL games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS), including two power play goals and two shorthanded goals. He plays in all situations – the power play, penalty kill, both sides of six-on-five, starts in all three zones – and is the exact kind of player that Sullivan should want on the roster.

Dubas should be making calls on both Nieto and Acciari, as Acciari, especially, is the kind of player who a playoff team would might want on their fourth line or as an extra forward for his shot-blocking ability and physicality.

But if Dubas can’t get any takers, a guy like Nieto isn’t beyond waivers, especially when Ponomarev can slot in on the fourth line and, at the very least, provide the same kinds of “thankless jobs” and defensive work as Nieto does – except with more upside.

There are other options, too – such as Ville Koivunen, who has 10 goals and 27 points in 32 games for WBS, and even Emil Bemstrom, who has 15 goals and 32 points in 30 games. But, even with just Ponomarev – who can fill in at fourth-line center – added to the roster, things could look a good bit better right now because guys like Lizotte can be better-placed in the lineup to help contribute to more depth scoring.

Once Malkin and Bunting return, decisions will have to be made, anyway. The Penguins are at full-capacity on their roster, they’re currently carrying eight defensemen, and they have a surplus of forwards.

We’ll see what happens, but the Penguins have some options in the AHL who could fill in quite nicely and give this roster a jolt.

Defense

It’s no secret that the Penguins also have a surplus of defensemen – and that they also have a few defensemen who are, likely, on the trade block.

Pending unrestricted free agents Marcus Pettersson and Matt Grzelcyk could be attractive options for teams in need of blue line help. Pettersson – although going through a bit of a rough season – is still a top-four shutdown defenseman and could be one of the best defenders available on the market. Grzelcyk – who has 22 points in 45 games – is just four points shy of breaking his career-high in points and is a cheap option for a team wanting more offense from the blue line as well as a power play specialist.

Dubas needs to be making and fielding calls on both of those guys. The Penguins already have four other left defensemen – Owen Pickering, Ryan Graves, Ryan Shea, and P.O Joseph – on their NHL roster, and they have two other defensemen in WBS who may be able to help fill some roster holes for the remainder of the season without Pettersson and Grzelcyk.

Right-side defensemen Mac Hollowell – who has 19 points in 26 games for WBS – and Nathan Clurman – who appeared in one game for the Penguins this season and looked pretty solid on a third pairing with Shea – could both fill in as an extra defenseman and would help the Penguins, who only have two right-shot defensemen on their NHL roster in Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang.

Filip Kral, a left-shot defenseman who has five goals and 15 points in 24 games for WBS, is another option. Kral had a good training camp, moves the puck well, and is good on the power play. Both Kral and Hollowell were drafted by Dubas in Toronto in the 2018 NHL Draft.

In other words, the Penguins probably have enough defensive depth in their system to keep the ship afloat for a stretch run, even if one or both of Pettersson and Grzelcyk is dealt. They could also look to add a defenseman in the trade market to offset that loss, or they could even call up Harrison Brunicke – their 44th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft who almost made the team out of training camp – when his junior season concludes, barring that his wrist injury doesn’t give him any setbacks.

Regardless, the blue line figures to look quite different a few months from now.

Goaltending

This is the big one. This season – according to Hockey Reference – league-average save percentage is .901. Alex Nedeljkovic has played in 19 games and has an .886 save percentage on the season. Tristan Jarry has played in 21 games and has an .888 save percentage.

That is not good enough.

In contrast, Joel Blomqvist – who began the season as a rookie with the Penguins and has since been sent down to WBS – has a .904 save percentage at the NHL level this season. That number includes one outlier game against the Dallas Stars, where he surrendered three goals on eight shots and was pulled in the first period.

Take out that one game, none of his other starts came in below an .895 save percentage, and only two games were below .900. Take out that one game – his most recent in the NHL – and he has a .913 save percentage while having faced an average of 36 shots against per game, which is a barrage compared to Jarry’s average of 28 and Nedeljkovic’s average of 29.

So, not only does Blomqvist have better numbers than both, he has also faced a bigger workload within the games he has played.

At the AHL level this season, Blomqvist has a .912 save percentage in 12 games played, and Filip Larsson – the other half of the tandem at WBS – has even more impressive numbers. The 26-year-old Swede owns a whopping .927 save percentage and a 2.44 goals-against average in 13 games played and has been getting most of the starts lately.

Both of those guys may very well be better options than either player on the NHL roster right now. Dubas should be calling as many GMs as possible regarding Nedeljkovic because his manageable cap hit ($2.5 million for one more season) and decent numbers in lower-volume workloads make him a good backup option for a team in need of goaltending help.

He should also be calling WBS to get one of Blomqvist or Larsson on the next bus to Pittsburgh, because it seems like goaltending may very well be the difference between playoffs and no playoffs for the Penguins this season.