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Pittsburgh Penguins assistant general manager Jason Spezza talked at 4:00pm to discuss the activities of the team on the first day of free agency.
Overall, Spezza said the team was attempting to stay disciplined in their approach to free agency and avoid making long-term commitments to players. Their goal was to take a thoughtful approach to make sure they avoided regrettable moves. Pittsburgh did spend over $10 million today (plus added the RFA rights of Nick Robertson) but for only one and two year deals for Declan Carlile, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Andrei Kuzmenko to fit that mindset.
Time to move
Later on, Spezza didn’t directly say that Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang would be a part of next year’s team but did reinforce their (and Sam Girard’s) current position as key players currently on the roster. Then again, maybe take any public comments about specific players for the future with a grain of salt considering Kyle Dubas included Parker Wotherspoon in a sentence with “guys that are going to be part of it for a long time with us” only to trade him two days days later.
Overall, Spezza didn’t sound particularly concerned about the current imbalance of right hand shots, noting the team could look in camp to see which, if any, right handed players might be comfortable shifting to the left side in order to help the team get their top-six defenders on the ice. As the way that stands now, that group would certainly be at least four and possibly five right shots.
Can’t address Robertson, but…
Spezza was wisely careful to not directly speak of Jason Robertson, a player outside of their organization, but did say that Pittsburgh is involved in talks wherever they can in order to acquire quality players. To commentate on that, the fact the Pens had Spezza conduct the interview indicates that Kyle Dubas is still tied up and working on something, whether or not he can pull it off is still up in the air.
One Robertson that Spezza could talk about was brother Nick, who Pittsburgh acquired today. Spezza said opportunities arise when other teams are looking to clear money/space for other opportunities and that the Pens were happy to use their pile of draft picks to go and get a player that they’ve had their eye on for a while.
No extension updates
Spezza didn’t have any news about potential extensions for Karlsson and Sidney Crosby. Both veterans are eligible today to have new deals for the 2027-28 season, but going into the offseason it was expected that it wasn’t a pressing issue for the team or player to make those talks and decisions at the very start of this year’s free agency cycle.
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