In a high stakes, ultra-competitive world like the NHL, EVERY year carries the utmost of importance. If a player blows it in a major way or suffers a devastating injury, that could be curtains for their careers with so many others nipping at their heels to take their spot. So in a nutshell, just about everyone puts everything on the line each and every year.
But some seasons are more critical than others. For many Penguin players, that is 2025-26. The list of impending free agents on Pittsburgh’s
roster for next summer is crazy long. In fact, it’s much easier to say who IS under contract for 2+ more years rather than who is about to expire. That list of players who have at least a little bit of term is Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust, Tommy Novak, Justin Brazeau, Rutger McGroarty, Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Ryan Graves, Parker Wotherspoon and Tristan Jarry. For everyone else, there’s some degree of decision time coming up when their contracts expire next year. Ironically, of course, it’s lost on no one that some of those players named above might not even be around if trades happen, potentially shrinking the list even further.
In the past, maybe only a player or two would have a ton on the line for a team like the Pens. Most players were locked in their roles and had the contracts to tie them to the team. Sure, their successes or failures on the ice would determine if the team rose or fell, but there was a lot of stability tied into the mix.
Nowadays, with the Pens becoming a younger and hungrier bunch, there’s not so much in the way of that comfort. By design, the Pens want to see which players will step out and perform, possibly playing themselves into the team’s future (or maybe, playing themselves out the door to be traded to a contender). Then again, in some situations the team looks content to let some veterans play their contracts out, get through this season and move on.
Who has the most on the line? Let’s come up with some names
Anthony Mantha — Mantha is the literal and immediate player with the most on the line this season for the Penguins, because he has up to $2 million in performance bonuses that he could achieve and nearly double his take-home pay. In that sense, no one has more to potentially gain from a big year. Beyond that, Mantha is at a crossroads now. He just turned 30. Arguably, teams have always been looking for that little bit extra out of him, whether it’s been a spark of intensity or consistency of effort to match his obvious skills and absolute ideal size. There’s also been some major bumps in the road for him lately, Mantha was traded to Vegas for the 2024 playoff run and played so poorly that he was made a healthy scratch. He followed that up by suffering a major knee injury at the beginning of last season with Calgary and has been out since November. At some point players run out of second chances, especially when they reach the point of being older than most of their peers. This probably won’t be Mantha’s last opportunity, but it could well be his last good one.
Danton Heinen — On reddit, a user semi-jokingly came up with the most average of all NHL players (last year it was Drew O’Connor!) Danton Heinen would probably fit that bill more often than not. Heinen isn’t bad, but he isn’t really good. He doesn’t have any standout skills or characteristics. He can play left wing or right wing. In a pinch he could kill penalties or jump out there on the power play, though you would have better options for either elsewhere. He’s just kinda there. But one of the more impressive things about Heinen’s career has been some staying power and ability to bounce back. His whole career is full of alternating ups and downs (great with Boston when he first broke in, then a drop off and forgettable stint in Anaheim…Great when picked up at first by Pittsburgh in 2021, then a drop in 2022….Great back with Boston in a second stint in 2023, then a fall with Vancouver in 2024.) Not terribly much is expected from Heinen, but he’s in a contract year and probably at risk at falling out of the picture now that the Pens have signed players like Mantha and Brazeau. That’s usually where, against all odds and perhaps logic, that Heinen has been at his best with surprisingly effective performances. Does he have one more up his sleeve for this season?
Philip Tomasino — Tomasino went from a promising player showing some upside and production last season to one that also frustrated and confounded coaches with his all-around play and occasionally attention to detail. It was a somewhat procedural and circumstantial move, but hard to miss that the Pens didn’t qualify Tomasino and let him get out to the open market to see what was out there, before he ended up agreeing to come back to Pittsburgh. It’s not like the team had to worry about paying him a few extra hundred thousand to fit under the cap, but they didn’t like him enough to guarantee retaining his rights. Tomasino could legitimately score 15-20 goals this season if he stayed healthy and played his way into being a part of the team, or it could go sideways and have a lot less of an impact than that. It’ll be a fascinating part of the story to watch unfold for how it goes for him.
Matt Dumba — You could easily tell which Pittsburgh media members had very outdated views on Dumba by how they reacted to the Dumba trade. Some, with no file since seemingly 2021, hailed the move as something that would help the Pens. But Dumba hasn’t actually helped an NHL team in quite some time, and the Pens will be his fourth stop since just the start of the 2023-24 season. Still, at age-31, does Dumba have anything left in the tank that can help an NHL team? The answer has been trending to “no” for a while now, but as a right shot defender with the ability to shoot the puck and play with an edge, you might as well give the benefit of the doubt to see what kind of redemption arc may play out. It’s been several years and defensive staffs ago since Pittsburgh was known as a place to give a mid-career boost to struggling defenders, and maybe that magic is dried up…But it’s worth watching to see if Dumba can play his way into any value with the Pens this year.
Arturs Silovs — Silovs is a goalie, so of course his level of play has been all over the place. He hasn’t been great in the NHL — except when he admirably performed well for the Canucks in the 2024 playoffs with a 5-5 record (which is more than Jarry’s two career NHL playoff wins). Silovs is coming off a fantastic performance in the AHL playoffs. Which, yeah, it’s the AHL and not NHL but can that be a launching point for an NHL career? There’s a lot for him to prove, but it’s at least a fresh gamble for the Pens to try and take, and they weren’t getting that good of performances out of the most recent backup goalie in the first place, so hey, why not? At this time in about ten months, Silovs might be free to the wind as a free agent that didn’t do much to establish himself, or he could be a semi-entrenched member of the Pens for 2026 if it goes well. The range of possibilities is very intriguing.
