Penguins Still Need 3 Key Moves This Offseason

The Pittsburgh Penguins have made a strong start to the offseason with their entry draft and free agency signings. Despite this promising start for the Penguins, several areas of concern still need to be addressed. Here are three of the biggest moves I think the Penguins and general manager Kyle Dubas need to make before calling it quits this offseason.

Find a Way to Move Ryan Graves’ Contract

In 2023, the Penguins signed free agent defenseman Ryan Graves to a six-year, $4.5 million average annual value (AAV) contract. Needless to say, in the first two years of that deal, he has not lived up to the massive price tag. Worse yet, he is due $4.5 million a year for the next four seasons. In 131 games, he has accumulated only 18 points and has spent most of the time on the third defense pair. Yikes! The Penguins need to find a way to get his awful contract off the books and free up $4.5 million in cap space.

The Penguins really only have two options when it comes to moving Graves’ contract. They can either trade him or buy him out. If they were to trade Graves, they could expect basically nothing in return and would probably have to attach additional assets to entice a team to take on his contract. On July 10, they acquired Matt Dumba from the Dallas Stars for a 2028 second-round pick and defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok. I expect they would have to attach at least a second-round pick to move Graves if not more. This would be a no-brainer for me, the Penguins have 17 selections in the next three drafts that land in either the first, second, or third round, and they can afford to give up two of the seven second-rounders.

The other option is to buy out Graves’ contract. A buyout works by paying two-thirds of the remaining salary over double the remaining length of the deal. Since Graves has four years left on the deal, if the Penguins were to buy him out, they would have to pay him $5,166,667 over eight years (Graves only has $7.75 million in base salary remaining; much of his contract value comes from bonuses, which do not factor into a buyout). This option would save the Penguins around $5 million over the next four seasons, but then would cost them $645,833 a season from 2029 until 2033. The upside to buying out Graves is that the Penguins would also keep valuable draft capital. This is the option I would choose, but it would also be nice for the Penguins to wash their hands completely of Graves by trading him away.

Trade Erik Karlsson

Penguins fans are probably sick of hearing the Erik Karlsson trade talk, but it is imperative that the Penguins trade him before the season starts. Why the rush? With the acquisition of Dumba, the Penguins have four right-handed defensemen: Connor Clifton, Kris Letang, Karlsson, and Dumba. One of them needs to go, and it should be Karlsson. It is also important for the Penguins to trade him now because he is healthy, and teams are desperate for right-handed defense. Also, if Karlsson gets off to a poor start like he did last season, his trade value drops.