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Adam Gretz

NHL Power Rankings: Teams with the best long-term outlook

By Adam GretzApr 27, 2020, 12:00 PM EDT
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In this week’s edition of the NHL Power Rankings we take a look at the teams with the best long-term outlook.

How are we defining long-term outlook? Pretty simple, and it comes down to one fairly important question: Does this team have a chance to win the Stanley Cup (or two Stanley Cups) over the next five years.

That takes into account talent currently on the roster, talent coming through the farm system, salary cap situation, and pretty much everything else that is required to win it all.

Where does your favorite team sit?

To the rankings!

1. Colorado Avalanche. Unless they royally screw it up somehow this is the ideal situation in both the short-and long-term. They could win the Stanley Cup as soon as this season, and should be a constant contender for the next five years (and more). They have superstar players just now entering their prime, they have great young players on cheap deals and a nice pipeline of talent coming through the system, and they have a great cast of complementary players around the stars. Nearly every core player is signed long-term and they have a ton of salary cap flexibility to add players where needed.

2. Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning have been one of the best teams in the NHL for more than five seasons now and are still searching for that championship for this particular core. Even with their recent postseason shortcomings this core is still absolutely good enough to get it done, they are still mostly in their primes, and signed long-term. Salary cap situation will be tight, but they have elite players at every position on the ice and plenty of depth.

3. Boston Bruins. A Stanley Cup Finalist a year ago and the best team in the NHL this season. The Bruins are one of the league’s elite teams and well positioned to compete for the foreseeable future. The only thing that might start to slow them down is the age of some of their top players and a few questions beyond this season (contract status for their goalies, adding depth within the salary cap).

4. Pittsburgh Penguins. As long as they still have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Jake Guentzel performing the way they have been they are going to be in a position to compete. There will come a time in the next few years where the former three really start to slow down (or maybe even retire) but that time is not here yet.

5. Washington Capitals. Similar outlook as the Penguins, where as long as Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, John Carlson, and T.J. Oshie are doing their thing they are going to be in the mix for the Stanley Cup. They also have a really nice wave young talent starting to emerge with players like Ilya Samsonov and Jakub Vrana.

6. Toronto Maple Leafs. At some point they have to get through Round 1 of the playoffs, and until they do they will be a postseason punchline. But I like to bet on talent, and Toronto, even for all of its flaws, has a ton of talent. Championship talent. The big contracts at the top will require some creative salary cap maneuvering, but every team that wins a Stanley Cup has a similar roster construction with a small number of players eating up a significant portion of salary cap space. That concern is overblown.

7. St. Louis Blues. I like the Blues in the short-term. I like their chances to repeat this season, especially in the Western Conference. But they have some big free agents to deal with in the coming years and that creates at least a little bit of long-term uncertainty. They are not going away yet. But they do have some big questions to answer down the line (Alex Pietrangelo, the goalies, Jaden Schwartz, David Perron, etc.)

8. Carolina Hurricanes. A team that has been on the rise for a while and arrived last season with a stunning trip to the Eastern Conference Final. The Hurricanes have a great young nucleus in place with a sensational defense and a handful of outstanding young forwards led by Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, and an emerging superstar in Andrei Svechnikov.

9. Philadelphia Flyers. There is a lot to like in Philadelphia right now. Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracak can still be impact players in the short-term, while they have two front-line players in Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny in the prime of their careers. The X-factors here are the trio of Shayne Gostisbehere, Ivan Provorov, and Carter Hart. If they progress and become the players the Flyers hope they will that can be a game-changer in Philadelphia. That is especially true as it relates to Hart.

10. Vegas Golden Knights. An outstanding team in a very winnable division. The big concern here is that it is a little bit of an older team with several players in their core starting to approach age 30 and beyond.

11. New York Rangers. Artemi Panarin is one of the league’s most best offensive players, but what truly makes this team fascinating going forward is the young talent around him. They have two outstanding young goalies (Igor Shesterkin and Alexandar Georgiev), an emerging star on defense in Adam Fox, and a potential superstar in Kaapo Kakko.

12. Edmonton Oilers. It is very tempting to put them higher on the list because Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are that good. They are the best 1-2 punch in the league, and in theory that should give them a great window to compete in. But there remains a lot of questions after them.

13. Calgary Flames. They are not as good as their 2018-19 record and they are probably a little better than they have showed this season. There is a good core in place, as long as they do not do something outrageous like trade Johnny Gaudreau, or something.

14. Vancouver Canucks. Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Quinn Hughes is a potential championship trio, and 2019 first-round pick Vasili Podkolzin has enormous potential for when he makes the jump to North America. They still have a lot of work to do around that young core, though.

15. Florida Panthers. This season has been a massive disappointment, but Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau are an amazing steals at the top of the lineup which gives them a huge advantage.

16. Nashville Predators. A tough team to get a feel for long-term. I like their talent, I think they still have a chance to compete for a title, but I also wonder if they already missed their best opportunity.

17. Columbus Blue Jackets. There is some really good talent here, and the defense duo of Seth Jones and Zach Werenski is tremendous. The performance of the goalies in the short-term will dictate a lot.

18. Dallas Stars. I feel like they need more impact talent at forward. Tyler Seguin is still really good, but Alexander Radulov isn’t getting any younger. John Klingberg and Miro Heiskanen are the long-term faces of the franchise. A lot of their success this season is goaltending driven, and that’s fine in the short-term, but you can’t rely on that every single season.

19. New York Islanders. Given the current construction of the roster the Islanders are positioned to be a fringe playoff team, but lacking the superstar talent to really become a true Stanley Cup contender.

20. New Jersey Devils. Sometimes timing is everything. The Devils have had two of the past three No. 1 overall picks, but they did not have them in a year where there wasn’t a Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Connor McDavid, or even a Steven Stamkos available. Nico Hischier is outstanding, and Jack Hughes has the potential to be there, but there are some big questions around them.

21. Winnipeg Jets. Love the forward talent, really like the goalie, but have some serious concerns on defense. Like Nashville, I think we may have seen this team miss its best shot.

22. Chicago Blackhawks. The window slammed shut rapidly and brutally. They still have some high-end players, and Adam Boqvist and Kirby Dach have big-time potential, but this is going to be three consecutive non-playoff seasons and five years without a playoff series win. Not sure if the window opens backup anytime soon. By the time Dach and Boqvist become stars, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews might be slowing down.

23. San Jose Sharks. I could see the Sharks rebounding next season and being a playoff team again, but the age of their core and the salary cap situation with some of those contracts is a long-term concern.

24. Minnesota Wild. I’m still having a hard time seeing the long-term direction here or where this team is going. Not a bad team. Not a great team. Just sort of stuck in the middle.

25. Arizona Coyotes. This is not a bad team, and there is definitely upside here, but if they can not re-sign Taylor Hall they will have a glaring lack of impact talent at forward and without some significant luck in the draft lottery will not be in a position to add any anytime soon.

26. Montreal Canadiens. They have good players and Marc Bergevin has made his share of good moves, but the end result is never anything other than mediocrity. That is a difficult cycle to get out of.

27. Buffalo Sabres. Jack Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin should be a reason for optimism, but there is no sign that ownership or management knows how to properly build around them.

28. Detroit Red Wings. The current roster is not good but they have draft assets and one of the most respected general managers in the league. The salary cap situation is also better than it looked a year or two ago. They are still a LONG way from contention.

29. Los Angeles Kings. They are finally starting to lean into the rebuild and have an interesting farm system, but it is going to take some time.

30. Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks have had a pretty great run throughout the salary cap era, winning a Stanley Cup, making three other Western Conference Finals, and almost always being a playoff team. But that chapter has closed and it is time for a new beginning and a rebuild.

31. Ottawa Senators. There should be reason for optimism here. There are some really good young players in place, they have salary cap space, but it all starts at the top with ownership. It is really tough to buy into them long-term for that reason.

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

Alternate NHL history: Patrick Roy’s exit from Montreal

Canadiens Patrick Roy
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By Adam GretzApr 23, 2020, 6:00 PM EDT
2 Comments

With 2019-20 NHL season on pause we are going to take an occasional look back at some of the alternate timelines that could have existed throughout the history of the league. Here, we contemplate what would have happened had Patrick Roy not been embarrassed in a 1995 game against the Detroit Red Wings and demanded a trade out of Montreal. 

At the start of the 1995-96 season Patrick Roy was already one of the most accomplished goalies in the history of the Montreal Canadiens, and on a path that was going to lead him to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But on Dec. 2 of that season, in the Canadiens’ 22nd game on the schedule, the proverbial turd hit the fan.

It was on that night that Roy was humiliated in his own building, embarrassed on national TV, and ultimately played his final game as a member of the team before being traded to the Colorado Avalanche (along with team captain Mike Keane) for Jocelyn Thibault, Andrei Kovalenko, and Martin Rucinsky.

It remains one of the most significant moments in the history of the Canadiens’ franchise.

The Gathering Storm And The Eruption

Just four games into the 1995-96 season the Canadiens fired coach Jacques Demers, replacing him with Mario Tremblay, a former Canadiens player with no prior coaching experience. Things quickly devolved into chaos between Roy and Tremblay, and the stories of tension between the two are legendary at this point. Things ultimately reached their boiling point against the Red Wings on that now infamous night at The Forum.

The Red Wings opened the first period by scoring five goals on 17 shots against Roy, each one a more beautiful masterpiece than the one that preceded it. Instead of making a goaltending switch, Tremblay instead made the fateful decision to leave Roy in the game. The Red Wings goals never stopped coming. At one point in the second period Roy made a routine save and received a mock cheer from Montreal crowd, resulting in Roy raising his arms in celebration.

Finally, after allowing nine goals, Tremblay made the decision to remove Roy from the game in favor of backup Pat Jablonski. Upon returning to the bench, Roy stormed by his coach before leaning over to team president Ronald Corey and informing him that he had just played his final game with the team.

Just a few days later, general manager Rejean Houle sent Roy and Keane to Colorado. It was the perfect confluence of incompetence that saw an inexperienced, in-over-his-head general manager (just 40 days on the job), make a disastrous trade that only became a necessity after his equally inexperienced coach couldn’t coexist with one of the greatest players in the history of the league, and then completely humiliated him for no real reason.

That leads us to the questions.

What if Tremblay had simply avoided embarrassing Roy?

We could go back even further and ask “what if the Canadiens had hired a different coach,” but for now let’s just stick with this part of the equation.

There comes a point in every blowout game where the losing coach makes a goaltending switch even if they know it will not make a difference in the game. Sometimes your goalie has a bad night. Sometimes the team in front of them plays like garbage and you just want to spare them the embarrassment. But it usually happens. It usually happens before nine goals enter the back of the net in less than two periods.

The simple answer is that Roy continues on as goalie of the Canadiens, maybe has a rocky relationship with his coach, but ultimately outlasts him because he’s the superstar Hall of Fame player.

The Canadiens would have still had a franchise goalie, and that could have been a game-change in the short-term. Maybe it doesn’t bring another Stanley Cup to Montreal (they didn’t have that sort of team), but even without Roy they were still a playoff team in 1995-96 and the next two years after that. Thibault had a solid start to his Montreal career before self-destructing in the first-round of the playoffs that year against the New York Rangers. He never really solidified the position after that, was eventually traded two years later, and the Canadiens went through a revolving door of goalies over the next decade.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, Roy was the final piece of the puzzle for the Avalanche and helped bring two Stanley Cups to Denver, including his very first year with the team. He finished that postseason with a .922 save percentage, won 16 out of 22 starts, and delivered one of the most devastating quotes ever.

Had Roy not demanded a trade out of Montreal, how does the Colorado mini-dynasty shake out? They clearly had a team that was ready to win. But was Stephane Fiset or Thibault the goalie to get them there? It is difficult to imagine either one performing at the level that Roy did, especially in the Western Conference Final that season against the very Red Wings team that helped push Roy out of Montreal.

That Red Wings team set an NHL record with 62 regular season wins and was by far the highest scoring team in hockey. Roy held them to two goals or less in four of the six games, including a Game 2 shutout. No Roy in Montreal could have meant the Red Wings play in the Stanley Cup Final that season where they would have almost certainly trounced the Florida Panthers with the same level of ferocity that the Avalanche did. That would have set the stage for a potential three-peat, and taken them from simply being “The team of the decade” in the 1990s to one of the NHL’s all-time greatest dynasties.

The Colorado/Quebec Angle

It was later revealed that the Canadiens and Avalanche had trade discussions involving Roy earlier in the 1995-96 season because then-Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix had once been Roy’s agent. Talks were so far along that they had even reportedly agreed in principle a deal that would have sent Roy to Colorado for Owen Nolan and Fiset. But with the Canadiens losing their first five games of the season, they fired Demers and general manager Serge Savard (replacing them with Tremblay and Houle) and nixed the trade. Colorado then sent Nolan to San Jose for Sandis Ozolinsh a few days later. Ozolinsh ended up making a huge impact on that Stanley Cup run, along with Roy.

But the intrigue here is the fact that the Avalanche even existed. This was their first year in Denver after relocating from Quebec, and it results in another massive what if. What if everything had played out exactly as it did in Montreal, but the Nordiques had never moved to Colorado?

The Canadiens would have still been in a position where a trade was necessary, but there is almost zero chance they would have even entertained the thought of trading him to one of their fiercest rivals.

Where would Roy have gone, and what impact would that have had on the league? In hindsight, Boston is one team that would have really stood out (even if it presented a similar issue for Montreal — trading within the division to a rival team). They were in a position to win, they were still trying to get Ray Bourque his Stanley Cup, and they had an absolutely appalling goaltending situation that they tried to remedy in-season with a trade for Bill Ranford.

Either way, it almost certainly would not have been Quebec, leading us down an entirely different timeline.

More alternate NHL history:
What if the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Alex Ovechkin lottery?

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

What is the Blues’ long-term outlook?

By Adam GretzApr 22, 2020, 5:08 PM EDT

With the 2019-20 NHL season on hold we are going to review where each NHL team stands at this moment until the season resumes. Here we take a look at the long-term outlook for the St. Louis Blues.

Pending Free Agents

The Core

Outside of top defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, who would be the top free agent available this summer, pretty much every key player on the Blues’ roster is signed (or under team control) through the end of next season.

Ryan O'Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko are the two most impactful forwards on the roster and both have long-term deals through the end of the 2022-23 season at a combined salary cap number of $15 million. As long as they maintain their current levels of play (Tarasenko being a 30-35 goal winger; O’Reilly being a dominant two-way center) they are going to be the foundation of a contending team at a pretty fair price against the cap.

Things do get a little more complicated after next season when forwards Alex Steen, Jaden Schwartz, and Tyler Bozak, as well as BOTH goalies (Jordan Binnington and Jake Allen) will all be eligible for unrestricted free agency.

Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou also provide some nice long-term potential at forward, with Thomas being especially intriguing. The team’s first-round pick (No. 20 overall) in 2017 has already shown flashes of top-line ability and is one of their best play-making forwards at even-strength. Still only 20 years old, big things could be in his future. He still has one more season after this one on his entry-level deal. Given how good he has already been, the potential he still has, and his current contract status he could be one of the Blues’ most valuable assets next season.

On defense, Colton Parayko, Justin Faulk, Marco Scandella and Robert Bortuzzo are all signed to long-term deals, while Dunn is still under team control as a restricted free agent after this season.

Overall, it remains a top-tier team in the NHL in the short-term and should still be a Stanley Cup contender.

Long-Term Needs

Getting Pietrangelo re-signed would probably be at the top of the list.

He is their captain, their top defenseman, and if he leaves they do not really have another option to take over that role. With Parayko, Faulk, Dunn, and Bortuzzo there would still be a solid defense there, but none of those players really fills the No. 1 defender spot. It is also unlikely — if not impossible — they would be able to find anyone comparable to Pietrangelo on the open market.

Scott Perunovich is probably their top prospect, and he does have a lot of potential on the blue line, but he has yet to play a game of professional hockey and is a long way off from being able to fill a top-pairing or meaningful role.

Beyond that, their farm system as a whole is not the strongest and they have some fairly significant free agents over the next two years that they will need to do with — including the two goalies.

Long-Term Strengths

In the more immediate future they have an outstanding goalie with Binnington and Allen in place, and that is also probably the one position in their farm system that has some potential long-term options.

Their biggest strength, though, is simply the players they have at the top of their lineup.

Acquiring O’Reilly from the Buffalo Sabres before the 2018-19 season has turned out to be an enormous win for the organization. Not only because it gave them a bonafide No. 1 center that could drive play at both ends of the ice, but because it cost them almost nothing of consequence to get him. He scores at a top-line rate, is a sensational defensive player, and plays big, tough minutes against other team’s best players while being able to stay out of the penalty box. At a $7.5 million salary cap hit that is an enormous bargain.

Then there is Tarasenko.

He has been one of the NHL’s most dangerous goal-scorers for the past six years and can be a game-changing talent when he is on the ice. The Blues did not really get a chance to experience much of that this season due to injury, but he is a star and might be the one player on this roster that might (emphasis on might) have Hall of Fame potential if he continues on his current path.

MORE Blues:
• Looking at the 2019-20 St. Louis Blues
• Blues biggest surprises and disappointments so far

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

St. Louis Blues: Biggest surprises and disappointments so far

By Adam GretzApr 22, 2020, 2:23 PM EDT
2 Comments

With the 2019-20 NHL season on hold we are going to review where each NHL team stands at this moment until the season resumes. Here we take a look at the surprises and disappointments for the St. Louis Blues

Vladimir Tarasenko‘s lost season

This might qualify as both a disappointment and a surprise.

The disappointment being that the Blues have had their most impactful and dangerous offensive player for only 10 games this season before he was sidelined due to injury.

The surprise is the way in which the Blues were able to overcome it.

Even with Tarasenko in the lineup the Blues were never really a dangerous offensive team (they were 15th in the league in scoring a year ago during their Stanley Cup season). When you remove him from the mix you are taking out one of the most prolific goal scorers in the league and not replacing him with anyone else. It could have been a pretty big obstacle to overcome. Instead, the Blues just kept rolling, did not really miss a beat offensively or in the standings, and are well position to make another run at a championship if/when the 2019-20 season resumes.

They will also almost certainly have Tarasenko back in the lineup, which will be a massive addition.

Moving on from Robby Fabbri

Not really a huge disappointment, but still a disappointment because of the way things just did not work out for them.

When Fabbri first broke into the league he looked like he had a chance to be a productive player that would be a part of the Blues’ core moving forward. But a run of devastating injuries completely sidetracked his development. He ended up signing a one-year deal as a restricted free agent this past summer and seemed to be getting one more shot to get things back on track.

He played in just nine games, scoring one goal, before being traded to Detroit.

It has worked out well so far for Fabbri with the Red Wings, but it is still a disappointment to see such a promising career in St. Louis end up the way it did.

Some surprising offensive contributors

With Tarasenko sidelined for most of the season the Blues needed some of their depth players to step forward and pick up some of that slack. Ryan O'Reilly remains a top two-way player, while Jaden Schwartz had the bounce-back season that should have been expected from him.

Those performances certainly helped. They were not the only ones.

They also received a great performance from winger David Perron who has been tremendous since returning to St. Louis for his third different stop with the team. He has nine game-winning goals and is on track for what could have been a career-year in the goal scoring department. Since returning to the Blues at the start of the 2018-19 season he has scored at a 30-goal pace per 82 games and been one of the Blues’ most reliable offensive performers.

Probably the biggest surprise, though, has been the goal-scoring production from Zach Sanford.

Entering this season the 25-year-old Sanford had scored just 12 goals in 99 career NHL games. In his first 58 games this season, he scored 16 goals. That is a 23-goal pace over 82 games and the type of secondary scoring they absolutely needed.

Evaluating Justin Faulk‘s St. Louis debut

Faulk was the Blues’ big offseason score, adding him from the Carolina Hurricanes and then immediately signing him to a long-term contract extension that begins next season. It will pay him $6.5 million per season through the end of the 2026-27 season.

I would not go as far as to say he has been a disappointment, but there has been a drop in his production from what we saw from him in Carolina. Especially as it relates to his offensive contributions. There is no question that some of that comes from a change in his power play usage, where he went from being one of the top options with the Hurricanes to a secondary option with the Blues. Less power play time (and less ice-time in general) per game can definitely cut into those numbers.

With that contract he is going to be part of the Blues’ defense for a long time, and depending on what happens with Alex Pietrangelo in free agency this offseason could take on an even bigger role in the coming seasons.

MORE BLUES:
• Looking at the 2019-20 St. Louis Blues
• Blues’ long-term outlook

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

What is the Penguins’ long-term outlook?

Pittsburgh Penguins
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By Adam GretzApr 20, 2020, 5:27 PM EDT

With the 2019-20 NHL season on hold we are going to review where each NHL team stands at this moment until the season resumes. Here we take a look at the long-term outlook for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Pending Free Agents

The Core

The Penguins’ core is mostly the same as it has been for the past 15 years, and it is the trio of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang.

They are all into their 30s at this point, and there will come a time in the not-too-distant future that they really start to slow down, but for now they remain the foundation of a Stanley Cup contending team.

Along with them there is a pretty strong supporting cast in place, and one that is probably a lot younger than you might realize. Even though they have made a habit of trading draft picks and prospects to strengthen their championship chases (as they should have) they have done a nice job replenishing the cupboard around their superstars. Especially over the past year.

Jake Guentzel (signed for five more years at $6 million per season) has become a star and one of their best home-grown players in years, while John Marino, Marcus Pettersson, and Jared McCann have been strong additions from the outside.

Bryan Rust has shown what he is capable of in an expanded role and carries a very affordable salary cap hit for the next two years, while Jason Zucker seems like an outstanding fit in their top-six while also being signed for three more full seasons after this one.

Brian Dumoulin remains a perfect complement for Letang on the top defense pair (while also being signed for three more seasons) while they have two very good young goalies in Matt Murray and Tristan Jarry that are still under team control for the next few years.

Long-Term Needs

They have some long-term salary cap restrictions, but that has been a constant theme for them for the better part of the Crosby-Malkin era. It just comes with the territory of being a contending team with superstar players. They do have a couple of contracts that will probably get dumped one way or another before they expire (Jack Johnson, Nick Bjugstad, maybe even Brandon Tanev a couple of years down the line).

The salary cap crunch could also create a little headache this offseason as they work to re-sign some key restricted free agents like McCann, Murray, and Jarry.

The latter two also create an interesting situation because both have the potential and ability to be outstanding goalies in the NHL. They also have both showed it (Murray more than Jarry). But juggling that contract situation is going to be interesting, especially as they figure out what sort of financial commitment to make with Murray.

He is a two-time Stanley Cup winner. But he has had some ups and downs over the past two seasons. How much can they commit to him, and for how long?

While they have done a great job of having a steady pipeline of talent come through their system to complement the stars, there is going to come a point where they will need to develop another truly high-end player when Crosby and/or Malkin are no longer able to carry the team. That time is not yet here, but it will eventually arrive.

Long-Term Strengths

The bottom line is the Penguins still have a couple of Hall of Famers and All-Star level players on their roster. They are still players that can take over and dominate games. As long as they have that, they have the most important ingredient for contending.

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Jake Guentzel are the type of players you win championships with. The Penguins have won multiple championships with them and been one of the league’s most successful teams by every objective measure. There will come a time when the window really does close on this core and a rebuild is needed, but that time is not here just yet. It may not be here for a couple of more years.

For as much money as they have committed to their core, and for as tight as their salary cap situation may be, they do have some pretty significant long-term contracts that are team-and cap-friendly. The trio of Guentzel, Rust, and Dumoulin is an outstanding secondary group of stars, and together they account for less than $14 million against the cap for the next couple of years. Even Crosby and Malkin are making far less than they could be. Every little bit of savings counts and helps make the rest of the team that much stronger.

They also have Mike Sullivan behind the bench who has done some of his best work this season.

MORE Penguins:
• Looking at the 2019-20 Pittsburgh Penguins
• Penguins biggest surprises and disappointments so far

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.