Line Combos: Pens 2022-2023 Training Camp thread: Its happenings

[Buddy Bizarre]

You prefer Zohorna over Kapanen?

Haha - no
I'm saying there's an affliction that this franchise recycles players. I provided 2 examples of recycled guys who will make the opening day roster

Prior to that, it was Simon and Sheary.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I personally don’t see the upside in keeping a worse player on a more expensive contract because they’re a vet, but maybe some can break it down for the cheap seats?

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Reminder that we lost by one goal in game 7, if you're under the impression bottom 6'ers don't matter.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I honestly think this whole roster situation got messy when the Penguins actually got Heinen to re-sign. I think they were fully going forward as if he wouldn't be here, which made retaining Kapanen make sense. But with Heinen sticking around, why keep Kapanen? But the issue is by the time Heinen signed, Kapanen had already filed for arbitration, so there was really no getting out of his deal.

Had they known Heinen was coming back, they could have not qualified Kapanen and have a 23 man roster of:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rakell
Zucker-Malkin-Rust
Heinen-Carter-McGinn
Poehling-Blueger-Archibald
Zohorna

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Smith-Rutta
Friedman-Ruhwedel

And you'd have about $2 million in cap space as far as I can tell.

 

[HandshakeLine]

We panic bought and then we can’t move the bad contracts for reasons so we lose cheap depth to keep the bad contracts around. I knew it was a possibility so it’s not like the end of the world, I just don’t get people cheering the move. It was a dumb roster decision and we should just accept that.

Like Hextall did some good moves this off-season, but these dumb little deals are going to bite us in the ass, like the Carter deal.

 

[Zirakzigil]

We panic bought and then we can’t move the bad contracts for reasons so we lose cheap depth to keep the bad contracts around. I knew it was a possibility so it’s not like the end of the world, I just don’t get people cheering the move. It was a dumb roster decision and we should just accept that.

Like Hextall did some good moves this off-season, but these dumb little deals are going to bite us in the ass, like the Carter deal.

The Carter deal is slight overpayment, not critical though. Especially when you consider the pretty steep discount on Geno and Letang. Carter AND Kap being overpaid on the other hand.... That starts to create problems.

The Pens have options, but no one is forcing management with their play, POJ is a prime example. He could of won that spot from Smith, but instead has been utter crap. It would of been nice for 1-2 players to have an excellent camp and made it impossible to not be played, but that never happened.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

I just don’t get people cheering the move

Some prefer to be contrarians than to stop and think rationally. Some also refuse to ever say anything negative about management/coaching.
There might be an element of coping with baffling decisions as well.

 

[Ugene Magic]

Can we go back to all the “Archibald is terrible but surely he won’t see NHL ice” posts from the days of yore?

This dumb team.

And also lol we’re going to definitely lose POJ for nothing.

on his way to Calgary....

 

[HandshakeLine]

The Carter deal is slight overpayment, not critical though. Especially when you consider the pretty steep discount on Geno and Letang. Carter AND Kap being overpaid on the other hand.... That starts to create problems.

The Pens have options, but no one is forcing management with their play, POJ is a prime example. He could of won that spot from Smith, but instead has been utter crap. It would of been nice for 1-2 players to have an excellent camp and made it impossible to not be played, but that never happened.

That’s what I’m getting at. There’s not one huge bad JJesque deal on the roster (besides his buyout), but these little overpayments for depth guys, for mediocre energy guys, for 7th pairing guys start adding up. We’re kind of nickel and dining ourselves here and we’re a worse team for it instead of cycling through the cheap guys we do have who are perfectly competent.

Just so very Penguins to get the bigger stuff done only to f*** up all the little stuff.

 

[dogthateats]

I wanted a carousel of hungry, young, and cheap 4th liners, but all I got was a carousel of dumb and overpaid 4th liners

 

[K Fleur]

Carter deal is great because it confirms the Penguins do not discriminate against the elderly.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Anyway, the real comedy is when we lose Ruhwedel and POJ for nothing!

I wanted a carousel of hungry, young, and cheap 4th liners, but all I got was a carousel of dumb and overpaid 4th liners

This team should be a meritocracy! No, not in anyway that resembles awarding places on merit, no.

Some prefer to be contrarians than to stop and think rationally. Some also refuse to ever say anything negative about management/coaching.
There might be an element of coping with baffling decisions as well.

The day a yinzer doesn’t love a coach is the day after Pittsburgh is consumed in the cleansing fire of a nuclear strike.

 

[dogthateats]

all games should be played in the metaverse
No more injuries to humans
No more expensive beer and parking
No more bragging about wasting most of your income to afford season tickets

 

[K Fleur]

I watch sports for the coaching.

And Dan Potash intermission interviews

 

[Gurglesons]

Anyway, the real comedy is when we lose Ruhwedel and POJ for nothing!


This team should be a meritocracy! No, not in anyway that resembles awarding places on merit, no.


The day a yinzer doesn’t love a coach is the day after Pittsburgh is consumed in the cleansing fire of a nuclear strike.

I honestly don't see an issue with either of these things. We've given POJ the opportunity to seize a role and he hasn't. Who gives a shit if we lose Ruhwedel for nothing?

Teams literally paid to lose much better players like Patches and Monahan.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I watch sports for the coaching.

And Dan Potash intermission interviews

This is almost to god something my cousins say, except they don’t appreciate Potash’s deeply intense weirdness.

I honestly don't see an issue with either of these things. We've given POJ the opportunity to seize a role and he hasn't. Who gives a shit if we lose Ruhwedel for nothing?

Teams literally paid to lose much better players like Patches and Monahan.

I can’t figure out if this team fetishizes depth or bad contracts tbh. Maybe the FO is into their professional pay pig kink?

But the comedy comes when people complain that their depth blueliner is untouchable. That’s what I’m rooting for!

 

[K Fleur]

I honestly don't see an issue with either of these things. We've given POJ the opportunity to seize a role and he hasn't. Who gives a shit if we lose Ruhwedel for nothing?

Teams literally paid to lose much better players like Patches and Monahan.

Well those aren’t a bunch of skating senior citizens.

POJ does suck though.

 

[Darren McCord]

I honestly don't see an issue with either of these things. We've given POJ the opportunity to seize a role and he hasn't. Who gives a shit if we lose Ruhwedel for nothing?

Teams literally paid to lose much better players like Patches and Monahan.

Monahan sucks and patches was given away. They didn’t pay

 

[Empoleon8771]

I honestly think POJ's value is probably only a mid round pick and an AHL replacement, so I don't even know that they'd be losing much by waiving him. You've seen a few defensemen in POJ's camp claimed off waivers in recent years, namely Clague, Cholowski, Juolevi, Mete and Juulsen. So I think it's a very safe bet that he would be claimed off waivers, but you're only losing out on maybe a 4th round pick by waiving him.

 

[SomeDude]

all games should be played in the metaverse
No more injuries to humans
No more expensive beer and parking
No more bragging about wasting most of your income to afford season tickets

Pshh. You think Zuckerberg is just going to let people watch Meta games for free out of the kindness of his heart? I've taken out 3rd and 4th mortgages on my home to reserve a spot right beside e-Sully on the bench. You'd understand it if you were an e-ticket holder.

 

[Peat]

I honestly think this whole roster situation got messy when the Penguins actually got Heinen to re-sign. I think they were fully going forward as if he wouldn't be here, which made retaining Kapanen make sense. But with Heinen sticking around, why keep Kapanen? But the issue is by the time Heinen signed, Kapanen had already filed for arbitration, so there was really no getting out of his deal.

Had they known Heinen was coming back, they could have not qualified Kapanen and have a 23 man roster of:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rakell
Zucker-Malkin-Rust
Heinen-Carter-McGinn
Poehling-Blueger-Archibald
Zohorna

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Smith-Rutta
Friedman-Ruhwedel

And you'd have about $2 million in cap space as far as I can tell.

Eh, don't agree with this. I don't think Heinen here particularly changes Kapanen's situation or their evaluation of him. If they were just getting Kapanen to have a scoring bottom sixer, then they could have just got one of the cheaper options in free agency, or not qualify him and try for a cheap deal, or something along those lines.

To me the most logical guess at what went down given the money and words is they really like Kapanen, they have a lot of faith in Kapanen, and he was pretty much always coming back bar circs that meant they couldn't.


I also suspect that Hextall doesn't really care if the roster situation is messy as long as he has the 20 guys he likes dressed most nights. I think we saw that with the minimal retention for Rakell last season, and I think we're seeing it again. In fact I think he might actively like it and have deliberately overstocked the team to create competition.

 

[eXile3]

We panic bought and then we can’t move the bad contracts for reasons so we lose cheap depth to keep the bad contracts around. I knew it was a possibility so it’s not like the end of the world, I just don’t get people cheering the move. It was a dumb roster decision and we should just accept that.

Like Hextall did some good moves this off-season, but these dumb little deals are going to bite us in the ass, like the Carter deal.

What did you expect? Our General Manager to do math?

 

[Gurglesons]

Monahan sucks and patches was given away. They didn’t pay

Vegas gave up one of their young Ds who played in 60 games last year to move Patches.

 

[Andy99]

Eh, don't agree with this. I don't think Heinen here particularly changes Kapanen's situation or their evaluation of him. If they were just getting Kapanen to have a scoring bottom sixer, then they could have just got one of the cheaper options in free agency, or not qualify him and try for a cheap deal, or something along those lines.

To me the most logical guess at what went down given the money and words is they really like Kapanen, they have a lot of faith in Kapanen, and he was pretty much always coming back bar circs that meant they couldn't.


I also suspect that Hextall doesn't really care if the roster situation is messy as long as he has the 20 guys he likes dressed most nights. I think we saw that with the minimal retention for Rakell last season, and I think we're seeing it again. In fact I think he might actively like it and have deliberately overstocked the team to create competition.

I think your giving the FO too much forethought and insight when they are, in reality, flying by the seat of their pants like the rest of us…

 

[Gurglesons]

I think your giving the FO too much forethought and insight when they are, in reality, flying by the seat of their pants like the rest of us…

It's not like every other contender in the East doesn't have similar issues or major pieces on LITR.