It is time for another round of preseason over/under for the 2026-27 Pittsburgh Penguins.
This past week we looked at Ben Kindel and the team’s youngest players (or potential young players). This week we are going to take a look at some of the newest offseason additions and what they might be capable of this season.
Let’s get started.
Nicholas Robertson: Over/under 20.5 goals
Of all the players the Penguins brought in this offseason, I think Robertson is the one that has the best chance to really make a big impact, both now and in the long-term
future.
He is still only 24 years old (soon-to-be 25) and has at least shown he has NHL skill, and perhaps still some untapped potential.
He has averaged a 17-goal pace per 82 games so far in his career, with that number inching closer to 19 goals per 82 games over the past three seasons. He has also done that by mostly playing in a depth role and logging only 12 minutes of ice-time per game.
On a per-minute basis, he has been one of the most efficient goal-scorers in the NHL over the past three years. His 1.09 goals per 60 minute of 5-on-5 play since the start of the 2023-24 season places him 29th in the entire league among the 517 forwards that have logged at least 500 minutes of ice-time. It also ties him with Jack Eichel and Jordan Kyrou, and puts him ahead of players like Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel and Pavel Dorofeyev.
That does not mean he is as good as those players. It just means that he has produced well in the limited minutes he has received.
He fits the mold of so many players the Penguins have acquired over the past year-plus: Early-to-mid-20s, strong rate stats, played well in softer and lesser roles, and players that might be looking for either a fresh start or an increased role. They have had some success with some of those guys (even if in a small sample size), including Egor Chinakhov, Elmer Soderblom and Parker Wotherspoon (before trading him this offseason).
Maybe Robertson can blossom here the same way. It might not work as well as it did with, say, Chinakhov, but I like the roll of the dice for the price that it cost.
The Penguins are hoping per-minute production can turn into bigger overall production with an increased role. Can it turn into 20-or-more goals?
Andrei Kuzmenko: Over/Under 20.5 goals
If you were looking for a parallel move a year ago, it would be Anthony Mantha.
- Veteran player.
- Some track record of success.
- Some inconsistency.
- Recent injury concerns.
- Short-term, one-year prove-it contract that could make him a potential trade candidate later in the season if things work out individually, but not necessarily on a team level.
I do not expect Kuzmenko to come in here and score 33 goals and lead the team in goal-scoring the way Mantha did a year ago, but I also don’t think he’s going to be a complete zero, either.
There is obviously some offensive talent here, and he has a pretty good shot. He broke into the league with 39 goals in his first season, scoring on more than 27 percent of his shots, but has not really come close to duplicating that total in the years since.
He did score 22 goals in year two, but has scored just 24 goals in 118 games since.
Injuries, and also bouncing around to three different teams in three years, have certainly caused much of his career to get sidetracked, as well as his own shortcomings and inconsistencies. But for whatever flaws he has to his game, he is a high percentage shooter and he can put the puck in the net. He has finished with a shooting percentage of 18 percent or higher in three of his four years in the league, while never having a season below 13.8 percent. He is also especially productive on the power play as a goal-scorer.
Is 20 goals really out of reach here?
He has topped that mark two times in four years, and was scoring at a 20-goal pace in the 52 games he played a year ago on a significantly worse offensive team (Los Angeles Kings) with far less talent around him.
A lot of it will be dependent on his ability to stay on the ice. But based on his career it’s a reasonable goal. A very reasonable goal.
Hendrix Lapierre: Over/under 10.5 points
Lapierre was one of the Penguins first moves of the offseason, but I figure it is probably the one forward move that will make the least impact. At least offensively speaking. The Penguins are so deep at the forward positions, both with established players and potential young players, that I don’t really see him being much more than a fourth-liner or extra forward.
He has 47 points in 158 career games. His rate stats are passable, but not quite on the level of a Robertson or even a Soderblom, and I just don’t know where his minutes or production are going to come from.
He is still somewhat young, but it just seems like organizational depth, with maybe the hope of catching lightning in a bottle and getting a solid depth forward.
Kaedan Korczak: Over/under 15.5 points
Korczak has never been a really big offensive producer, but Vegas consistently produced strong results when he was on the ice in terms of pushing play, out-chancing their opponents and out-scoring their opponents. He played a lot of sheltered minutes in a lower-pairing role, but he played them exceptionally well and probably earned a bigger look. I think in a lot of ways he is the defensive version of their gambles on players like Chinakhov, Soderblom and Robertson.
He averages a 20 point pace per 82 games, and is coming off a 16-point season in 74 games.
Declan Carlile: Over/under 20.5 points
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that not only is Carlile this year’s version of Parker Wotherspoon, but that he is also better than Wotherspoon. It may not result in quite as many points (Wotherspoon had 30 points a year ago), mostly because I’m not sure he is going to get as much ice-time next to Erik Karlsson (though, I suppose he could) but I could see him having a shockingly good year.
He played extremely well in Tampa Bay after being thrown into an NHL role, and his profile is very similar to what Wotherspoon was before arriving in Pittsburgh. This could be a sneaky good signing. Perhaps even a sneaky productive signing.
Trevor van Riemsdyk: Over/under plus-10 rating
Plus-minus has its flaws, but I am really just trying to give something else to guess on beyond goals and points. I am not looking at this as an end-all, be-all evaluation of his overall play. So plus-minus it is.
With Korczak, Carlile and van Riemsdyk all joining the roster, the Penguins turned over half of their defensive lineup this offseason, and that does not include the potential for players like Harrison Brunicke or Owen Pickering to play their way onto the roster and into the lineup. It is certainly a very different group, and it has decent a chance to be better defensively. Will it be good enough to get them closer to the top contenders in the Eastern Conference? That remains to be seen. But I do like the chances to at least be better.
Of all the defensive players they brought in, van Riemsdyk is probably the best pure defender among the group, and has posted plus-minus ratings of plus-10, minus-7, plus-20 and plus-6 over the past four seasons.
There were six Penguins players that were plus-10 or better a year ago. Is it a mark van Riemsdyk can reach this season?
