Defensive Pairings

Team: 2022-23 Pittsburgh Penguins

Initial Creation Date: Nov. 30, 2022

Published: Nov. 30, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

The Letang news is scary but it's so good to hear how quickly the Penguins medical staff reacted. Here's to Kris recovering with no issues.

In regards to the defensive pairs, Petry is going to be seeing a lot of minutes (first pairing, PP1 and PK2). Him and Pettersson are the obvious choices to be the first pairing. For the second pairing, I would place Joseph with Rutta. Let Joseph utilize his offensive upside while partnered to a defensive minded Rutta. Joseph should also see some time on PP2. I would give the least amount of minutes to Dumoulin and Ruhwedel. It is going to have to be "defense by committee" with Letang out and there is no better coach to have than Sullivan when situations like this arise.

The power play is broken and costing this team some wins. Here, I have them shaking things up a bit with Rakell and Zucker and PP1. Malkin has to be the trigger man on PP1.

There is not a real solution to the third line until Hextall decides enough is enough and makes a trade or waives Kapanen. Possible solutions could be waiving Kapanen and moving Carter to 3RW while calling up Poulin to play 3C. They could also waive Kapanen to call up Puustinen to play 3RW. Guess it depends on how management/coaches view Carter at 3C (seems like they are far from realizing that he may be inadequate for the 3C role).