The Penguins took care of some housekeeping to formally announce they extended qualifying offers to seven impending restricted free agents.
The above captures all of the team’s restricted free agents, so the Pens will be keeping the NHL
rights for all of them next season, which hasn’t always been the case recently. There are no real surprises in the group, including two recently acquired forwards in Hendrix Lapierre and David Gustafsson, getting offers to stick around. Officially these ‘free’ agents can still sign offer sheets with other teams starting on July 1st, but such practices are seldom seen in the NHL landscape and the Pens would have an opportunity to match the contract and retain the players.
Of the group, Chinakhov and Silovs figure to be the most important pieces with the team looking to decide for a short term contract that would cost less money or a longer commitment that would amp up the salary involved.
Chinakhov, who scored 36 points in 43 games with Pittsburgh after a mid-season trade, is projected by AFP for a one-year contract for nearly $3.7 million and a four-year deal for $5.5 million. Evolving Hockey’s model is similar with a one-year deal projected there at $3.3 million. Chinakhov is coming off a contract where he made $2.1 million annually, he’s in-line for a healthy salary increase no matter how the particulars shake out.
Given scoring rates and an increasing salary cap, it will be interesting this summer to see if the Penguins are sold on Chinakhov’s impressive year and make a big commitment to him, or want to see more in the form of a shorter bridge contract before deciding on a massive deal going his way. If they don’t think the 49 games they saw from the regular season and playoffs were enough to extend a long-term contract now, then a one-year deal makes sense for Chinakhov. That would place him back into restricted free agency next summer and offer a chance to work out a longer deal prior to his qualification for unrestricted free agency in July of 2028 and give a lot of incentive for the player to ‘sing for his supper’ in arguably the most crucial season of his career in 2026-27 to set the stage for a monster contract. A contract of $3.3-3.8 million as projected by the models, would be a very favorable one for the team, the opportunity of arbitration could spur negotiations to even have Chinakhov look at doubling his $2.1 million salary he was working under last year.
Silovs is looking at lesser projections. Evolving Hockey has the goalie at a one-year deal for $1.7 million, two years for $2.3 million annually and all the way up to $3.5 million annually on a three-year deal. AFP came in similarly with a projection of $1.8 million on a one-year contract for 2026-27. Based on that, a smart expectation would be for a short deal in that $1.75-2.0m range to keep their tandem goalie in 2026-27. Silovs is the same age and in the same boat as Chinakhov for turning 27 by July 1, 2028 and qualifying for UFA at that time – which means the Pens have two more seasons to watch him progress before he gets the leverage of turning towards the open market.
The other free agents have lesser projections and likely will sign for one-year contracts near their qualifying offers, which was 105% more than their salaries in 2025-26. Players like Lapierre, Koivunen and Blomqvist may be in position to negotiate a small raise on top of that but shouldn’t represent major issues as they look to prove themselves in 2026-27 before they can look for bigger contracts.
