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Matt Vensel's Penguins chat: 07.25.25
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Matt Vensel
11:16
Happy Friday, Penguins fans. Looking forward to talking hockey with you again today. We'll get started at noon. Chat with you then!
Arnold Slick
12:01
With a couple of their decent acquisitions this offseason, young wingers who can contribute, and with Rust and Rakell back, could the Penguins have a fairly decent team next year? Not contenders per se but be competitive all year?
Matt Vensel
12:04
Hello to our regular from Turtle Creek. No one they brought in really moves the needle, though I think the Anthony Mantha signing was a smart bet. And with the core guys being another year older and serious questions on the blue line and in net, I have a hard team picturing the Penguins cracking the top 10 in the East. Hey, this is the NHL. Surprising stuff happens ever year. If some of their kids make a leap and they actually get good goaltending, maybe they can sneak into the playoffs. But right now, I project them to finish in the bottom 2-3 in the division.
GPT
12:05
The Pens have lots of draft picks in hand for the next few years, but only one crack at McKenna next year. You never know when you'll get a Guentzel or Letang from a 3rd rounder, but what value do all of these extra picks have for them? Do they make these picks and become more decisive about churning through prospects (i.e., no holding on to Sam Poulin for 5 years), or do they start to look at trading for veteran talent next summer with their cap space?
Matt Vensel
12:09
GPT, good question about their surplus of picks. Folks used to complain about how they didn't have any picks. Now they have too many. Pretty wild turnaround, no? To your point, the Penguins might not use all of those selections to actually draft players. Under FSG, they have really built out their player development staff and hockey ops has signaled that ownership is willing to put more $ into that area if they aren't able to give all of their prospects the attention they need. That said, there is only so much playing time for them in the NHL and AHL. So at a certain point you really can have too many prospects. I think Kyle Dubas and the Pens are open-minded about how to use all those picks going forward. They have a lot of optionality based on what they need at any given time. They can acquire veterans, roll the dice on second-chance prospects, move up in the draft, dump a bad contract. It will be fun to see what they do with them down the road.
Arnold Slick
12:10
Any surprise the Penguins passed on LJ Mooney?  Not that D'Aigle was a bad pick, but by pure talent and production Mooney would seem to been better.
Matt Vensel
12:12
I don't know if surprised is the right word. I have no idea where they had Mooney on their board or whether they ruled out drafting him due to his size. But when they were on the clock a few times in the middle rounds with him still on the board, I did wonder if they would take a shot on the local kid. He's super skilled, can really skate and is competitive. We'll see if the Canadiens found a gem with him.
Joe
12:13
Why has Dubas overstuffed the roster with too many veteran forwards? What is the plan? Send the young guys who are waiver exempt back to WBS? Or waive a lot of vets and have them sit around in WBS because only 6 players of that kind meeting certain criteria can play for the AHL team? I mean it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me: just throw of bunch of players in a stew and see what comes out? Do you seriously think they’re going to waive a bunch of established bottom six players making over $2M per year when they can just send down the young prospects who are waiver exempt? What happened to just playing the youth this season? I, for one, am not interested in watching the team lose playing a lot of vets. If we’re going to lose, play the prospects
Matt Vensel
12:17
Joe, fair question considering he did that last year, as well. First off, I would say the roster is still very much in flux right now. The Penguins could trade one of their high-profile wingers or they could find a taker for someone such as Noel Acciari or Blake Lizotte. But even if they shed a couple of veteran forwards before camp, they will still have a lot of bodies there. Second, in the last two years all of the veterans they have acquired have short-term contracts. So there is nothing really stopping them from waiving some players if they feel their prospects are ready. Management is not trying to win and the Pens aren't close to the cap ceiling, so no harm, no foul. Summing it up, the Penguins said they didn't want to block their prospects but they also wanted to add credible competition. Nothing will be handed to the kids, they say. We'll see how it all plays out in the fall.
Bill
12:18
What Pens' "young players" do you expect make the opening night roster?
Matt Vensel
12:21
I expect Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen to be on the team. I would be shocked if they were not given how good they were for Wilkes in the second half and how they put an exclamation point on their seasons with their late stretch in Pittsburgh. On the blue line, Owen Pickering and Harrison Brunicke are not locks to make the team but NHL jobs are within their reach. The acquisition of goalie Arturs Silovs, which can probably still considered a prospect, will lead to a fun camp battle between him and Joel Blomqvist. I bet they will want Sergei Murashov to start the year in the AHL no matter what.
Jim (Cosmo) K in Jax
12:21
Hi Matt, hope you're enjoying summer. I saw yesterday in ESPN's power rankings for hockey that the Penguins are ranked 30 out of 32 teams at this point. Gritty was ranked 27th. The Sharks and Blackhawks are currently ranked behind the Pens. Is it going to be that bad?
Matt Vensel
12:22
Hey, Cosmo. It's quite possible, yes. I think it will depend on whether the Penguins trade away Bryan Rust and/or Rickard Rakell before the season. If one of both of them go, it's fair to say the tank is on.
Tom
12:23
Will the Penguins focus more on defense under Muse?
Matt Vensel
12:25
I don't think it's accurate to say that the Penguins did not focus on defense under Mike Sullivan. But I do expect improvement from Muse. I think the Penguins needed a fresh voice and approach, and perhaps the systematic tweaks he brings to Pittsburgh will help guys like Ryan Graves and Kris Letang to perform better defensively.
Guest
12:26
The players are largely the same abbeit  but don’t you think that playing under a system that recognizes their strengths and weaknesses might get different results?
Matt Vensel
12:27
Sure, to a point. But let's be realistic. Sidney Crosby is still awesome and the Penguins still have a few quality veterans on the roster. But on paper, this looks to be a bottom-10 roster. And it's by design.
Arnold Slick
12:28
I don't see how moving Rust or Rakell will help the Penguins. The Pens had a pretty bad season and still picked outside the top 10. Finishing worse doesn't guarantee a top 5 pick nor the #1 with the lottery. Maybe we get quantity back in prospects, but probably not quality. Guentzel, while admittedly on the last year of his deal, still didn't fetch any of Carolina's top 9 prospects in their system. With plenty of picks in the drafts coming up we will already have quantity to build from. What say you, n'at?
Matt Vensel
12:33
Generally speaking, NHL prospect analysts view the Penguins as having a much, much deeper prospect pool as they did 18 months ago, before they started their rebuild with the Jake Guentzel trade. But many of those same analysts say they still lack a truly elite prospect. For example, the Athletic after the 2025 draft did a ranking of the top 100 prospects at hockey. The Pens' highest prospect was Ben Kindel at No. 64. That said, we have no idea how all of these prospects will pan out. You guys are probably sick of hearing this by now, but look at Guentzel and Rust. Few thought that highly of them and they became top-line wingers. Character and player development matters. Clearly, Dubas and his scouts made some unconventional picks in this draft. But if they were right about a few of these kids, we may be having a different conversation about their prospect pool a year from now.
Sunner in Orlando from Lebo
12:35
Percent chance that Jarry is the opening night goalie vs being in another team's sweater this year?
Matt Vensel
12:36
Hey, Sunner. I would say it's much more likely that he is the Opening Night starter than it is that he is traded before the season. I did have someone from the team recently suggest to me that Jarry's contract might be more tradeable than people believe. I'm not buying it, but...
Guest
12:37
Most of what I read from local media is that trading Rust and/or Rakell only makes sense for the perfect type of deal.  I’m trying to understand why it would make any sense to keep them on the roster, even if the trade package isn’t perfect.  The Pens have very little chance of having a good year this year (and perhaps for several more years), and the trade value for Rust and Rakell is likely as high as it can possibly get.
Matt Vensel
12:39
I hear you, but what's the big rush? NHL training camps don't start for another eight weeks or so. The Penguins are right to sit tight for now if their price is not being met. Plus, if they bend and just take what they can get for one of those players, it signals to the rest of the NHL that Dubas can be pushed around in future trades. No bueno.
Guest
12:40
Thanks for the chat- Any rumors on activity regarding Karlsson?
Matt Vensel
12:41
I've heard nothing new regarding that. Doesn't mean it can't change with one phone call. I still believe the Penguins are going to make at least one significant trade before the start of camp. Stay tuned.
That will do it for today's chat. Thank you for all the questions. A lot of good ones today. We'll do it again soon. Have a great weekend!
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