Where did Friedman go? If you put him on waivers it's unlikely he passes through.

Even more unlikely anyone takes McGinn for free

Ehh, I don't know about that. His contract is maybe one year too long, but he's a good useful player and paid fairly. He's just excess for the Pens. I'm not saying ANY team would take him for free, but I don't think it would be much of an issue to a team like AZ or BUF.

He’s in the same category as Kassian and Nemeth imo

nah, I agree that his deal is probably one year too long, but $2.75M isn't awful for a guy who helped anchor a top-3 PK last season and is usually good for chipping in 25-30 points on top of that. he's like a slightly better Warren Foegele, with an extra year of term - I could see some young team like Seattle taking a swing at him to try and beef up the defensive side of their game.

Honestly? If I'm Pittsburgh, I'd skip Sonny Milano and squeeze Rodrigues down to $975K (or find the extra $25K somewhere else) because you can still fit McGinn on the roster that way. Figure out what to do with him next summer if you need to, but he's the type of guy that does the little things that contenders thrive with.

Yeah, McGinn is a solid player paid fairly. The Pens are just in a position where he's kind of a luxury and can better utilize his space, but I'm fine if the Pens keep him, too.

I think the fact Milano is still a FA is bizarre. He's a player who still has room to grow IMO, so if the Pens could nab him I totally would, but yeah, I would also like to get ERod back. I'm honestly not sure what he'll get at this point. We're seeing players like Stastny and Kessel go for major bargain, so it's hard to gauge. Regardless, the Pens would have to trade someone at this point to make not only the cap space, but the roster space. We only have one forward that is wavier exempt and a packed roster.

I think our roster is what it is, we'll send O'Connor and Smith down to be compliant. Could they send Archibald down to make some room for someone like ERod? Sure, but something tells me Hextall wants Sully to play him for a bit. I think they're hoping/banking on Poehling being the new ERod.

You miss Leo K tho lol



He’s like Komarov imo. You don’t need him at that price. At the minimum he’s nice to have.

Will have to agree to disagree. Outside of players on their ELC's or players aging out, players who are in the 30ish point realm are usually paid in the mid $2M range. Again, he has a year too long, but he's getting market value.

Fair enough. I just hate market value lol. In my mind the only good free agent signings are when you sign guys like Ryan Hartman, Carter Verhaeghe, Anthony Duclair, Valeri Nichushkin and Sam Steel to cheap prove it deals when they r still young. Signing vets is always a bad idea.

Oh, I totally get that. In a salary cap world, especially for the Pens, you're banking on that. For us it was Heinen. McGinn has already proven who he is and has had a pretty consistent career. That's also why I said there's really only a few teams you could basically give him away to. Teams up against the cap will want to send SOME salary back.

I should’ve used Heinen on my list lol. Currently the guys I’m looking at that will be “next up” includes Milano this summer and maybe Gurianov and Jost next summer.

Milano is probably going to be the steal of the century. I'm shocked he hasn't been signed yet.

Given the flat cap and the contracts we've seen signed this past offseason - it's definitely fair to say McGinn is very much overpaid. McGinn was that he was the worst forward on the team last year and he can be easily replaced by DOC for 750K. He's equal, if not better, than McGinn. McGinn does nothing well. With flat caps 2mil is a lot of money right now. That would easily sign Erod.

Yeah... 100% disagree with you, respectfully. McGinn is a very smart player who does a lot of the little things well, skates well, plays physical enough, gets to the dirty areas, is VERY good on the PK and is good for 10+ goals per year. I know he doesn't have the best fancy stats, but his presence IMO is positively noticeable when he's in the lineup.

Now, could DOC wind up being better? Sure. I'm a fan of his and I would like to see him get a real shot this year. My concern with DOC is production. He came out guns blazing and then hit a wall pretty hard. We've seen that happen with lots of players. We saw the exact same thing with Lafferty, so it's still up in the air.

DOC is still waivers exempt this year, if I'm the Pens I'd rather have him be the guy going up and down between WBS when we need a fresh body and keep McGinn around, as opposed to dumping Brock for nothing, putting O'Connor into a more defensive deployment than he's previously been used, and bring up a lesser (or waivers-eligible) player as my injury replacement. O'Connor is a fine player but it's not like he's forced his way into the lineup yet, I'd ride it out with McGinn and hope that the rumored increase in the cap next summer makes it possible to potentially trade him for an actual asset.

And again, I think there's something to be said for the fact that Pittsburgh's PK was *3rd* in the league last year, killing 84.43% of penalties and only allowing 33 power play goals against the entire season. Your top 4 forwards in PK TOI were Teddy Blueger, Brock McGinn, Brian Boyle, and Zach Aston-Reese. I can't help but think that getting rid of three of those four guys in one offseason is going to be a great move for your PK.

I couldn't disagree more - respectfully also of course haha. You can bring anybody up from the AHL and say those exact same things about them - specifically DOC and Zohorna. Those are the similar to things people said about Simon - but at least he drove play and had fantastic underlying numbers. McGinns presence is definitely felt when he's in the lineup - negatively. They get outshot, outchanced, and outscored with him on the ice. I'm not sure what positives you see having him out there. He's a slightly above average PKer sure - but that doesn't justify his salary. He's making basically the same money as Necas, Pujuljarvi, Domi, Athansiou, Duclair, etc - so I think it's perfectly fair to say his dollar amount is awful. That's my main point.

Fair point on DOCs production. Although lack of consistent playing time and a collapsed lung will do that to a young player. At least he's only making 750K - as opposed to McGinns lack of production at 2.75mil. Question though, if McGinn wasn't the worst forward on the team - who was?

Correct he is - and I fully expect him to start in the AHL. It wouldn't be dumping McGinn for nothing though - it allows them to sign someone like Erod or Milano. So I guess that is really the type of player we should be comparing McGinn to - not DOC. Then you can still use DOC as your call up guy/injury replacement.

Fair point on the PK - but it's obvious the PK was carried by ZAR and Blueger. And I don't think being decent on the PK justifies his 2.75mil salary. For example, the Pens were 1st in the league at 89% when everyone was healthy. With no Blueger they were 29th in the league with a 72.5% PK. With no ZAR, they were 16th in the league at 79%. Without McGinn they were 5th in the league at 88%. So it's obvious who was and wasn't important to the success of the PK unit.

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