Summer’s logjam is slowly starting to breakup with the recent news that Milan Lucic is going to St. Louis on a pro tryout. Brendan Smith will be headed to Columbus on a PTO. And don’t think it escaped attention that 38-year old Jack Johnson has agreed to a tryout with Minnesota last week.
PTO’s can serve different purposes of varying levels of seriousness. Some NHL teams just need warm bodies in camp to help them meet NHL exhibition games rules of having so-many veteran players in the lineup. Some are
giving shots in the dark to see what an old guy might have left. Some could really use a player stepping in and earning a job.
In recent years, the Penguins have had various levels of impact out of PTOs. Occasionally it’s been for players at the tail end of their NHL careers that are barely memorable like Matt Bartowski, Austin Wagner, Mark Pysyyk or last year’s PTO candidate Nikolai Knyzhov. Sometimes it’s worked out, to a marginal degree, like the Colin White and Brian Boyle PTOs that translated into contracts and a future NHL job.
This time around, with the cycle starting to go, here are some of the top free agents still around via PuckPedia.
It’s believed that Jack Roslovic will be getting picked up as a free agent to a decent deal once other dominoes fall in place, but that’s been believed for almost two months and hasn’t happened yet. Victor Olofsson, as noted, is now off the board with a contract closing soon with Colorado. Several others on the list like Tomas Tatar and Jakub Vrana have already signed to play with European teams. Pat Maroon is out-and-out retired. Matt Grzelcyk is a “been there, done that” for the Pens.
That doesn’t leave a lot to work with. Is a 40-year old like Ryan Suter going to “sing for his supper” and see himself stooping for a PTO? Suter has always been a Western Conference guy throughout his entire 20-year NHL career, which could be another impediment towards interest in Pittsburgh. He’s also aged out into a severe and distinct decline over the past few years.
Which, all that said, Suter would still probably be the best left handed defenseman in the Pens’ organization, even today at his advanced age.
From potential PTO candidates, Robby Fabbri stands out as an intriguing options. Major injuries, including multiple issues with the knees, have unfortunately derailed the 29-year old’s career. But he can put the puck in the net when he’s healthy.
All things considered for the Pens, they already have way too many mid-level wingers on their roster and could stand to drop a few more than add another with a PTO. At this point, there’s not much room or reason for someone like Fabbri to even want to come to Pittsburgh, but that outlook could change quickly with a phone call or two that ships out other players on the roster to open up room.
That pretty much is that, PuckPedia has the Pens at 46 of their max 50 NHL contracts for the season (though that number increases to 47 if Harrison Brunicke is kept at the NHL level). Pittsburgh has a little bit, but not a lot, of room under the limits to bring in maybe one or two veterans on PTO, but most would simply be camp bodies at this point. The pool of available players isn’t that interesting and the team is too bloated with tryout level players ala Kevin Hayes, Noel Acciari, Ryan Graves that already are playing under multi-year guaranteed contracts as it is.
