Personally, I don't think the Pens need a major upgrade on the third pair. The beauty of their current top-four is they have the ability to play big minutes and our third pair has been good enough. Great? No, but good enough. If they pick up an upgrade, it wouldn't be anything significant.

I think the real focus is finding one more scoring winger for the third pair. I love DOC, but if he keep playing the game of "almost" we're gonna need to address that.

agree to disagree. Shea and Ruhwedel have given up a lot of bad chances. They've both benefited recently form being on ice for goals for to help in the +/- column but i'd still like to see them upgrade. I'm hopeful ludvig can lock in a spot once he's healthy, short sample size but he looked solid. Adding once of these could also help to improve the PK (which is playing very well as is).

I don't disagree on a winger either, but haven't looked at options there and depending on $ it could be more difficult than adding a 3rd pair Dman.

Both Forbort and Grzelcyk would be available options at this point. Probably Gryz because Lohrei has a lot of the same skillset and because of Forbort's role housing minutes on the PK.

I'm not against an upgrade - just curious if they can fit it under the cap. Honestly idk why they don't just go back to POJ/Ruhwedel. They played 3 great games and then 1 bad one and we acted like it was the worst pairing of all time lol. We love our xGF%, but for some reason when it comes to their 66% we just ignore it. They had one of the lowest xGA/60 in the league as well.

I know it's not a large sample size, but based on the numbers it seemed like they had way too short of a leash with that pair.

There’s zero chance you get forsling as he’s their only lhd and really underrated. And would take a package you can’t afford nor have anything Florida wants

Dude, Forsling is a top pairing Dman that Florida definitely will not part with as long as they're competing this season. He'd instantly be the best LD on the Pens.

But I'm sure the Blues would be willing to part with 4-5 of their LDs.

realistic options limit you to Peeke [&] Carrier due to their respective teams log-jam on RHD.

He wouldn't become the best LD on the pens.

An no thank you, yall are stuck with those contracts lol. Bortuzzo would be a maybe, hard pass on the rest!

lot's of if's and but's, I wasn't saying he's a shoe in or an easy target, I tossed out mostly UFA players and various players that are on teams with large chunks of pending UFA/RFA's (which florida is).

If Montour and Ekblad don't get back at a decent time of the season and the team is floating out of a playoff spot it wouldn't be the worst thing for them to do.

Heh. Okay, man.

Rosen, Tucker and Scandella do not have long contracts, dude. And Bortuzzo is an RD.

Well aware he's a RD, the pens could upgrade either side on the third pair.

Rosen hasn't stuck a full season in the show, he's a 7th/8th guy at best and the pens have plenty of that.

Not wild on Scandella.

One will be back this week another in a couple more games. They are both practicing with the team again. Forsling should be number one priority on the resigning.

I think we need a net front presence for the third pair. Doesn't need to be anything crazy, but just someone who can protect our net better. POJ and Ruhwedle are fine, but I just think that is what the team is missing most so it's more about what type of player we need than them being bad. Peeke is good, Hakanpaa would be good too. Also think we consider moving Rakell. Like him a lot but if we could get two players that cost around 2.5, one for third line and one for top two lines I think that gives us way more depth.

Couldn't agree more on net front presence. Feel like that third pair gets pushed around a lot and in turn is negative on whomever is in Goal.

Yup exactly

To each their own I guess. To me when goals have been scored against with the third pair on the ice it's more scoring off the rush or leaving guys open in the slot, as opposed to burying rebounds in tight or crashing the net or anything like that. But that's just going based on my memory - I don't have any data to back that up. So could be wrong. I'm perfectly fine with trying to upgrade the 3rd pair - and if that player is also good in front of the net, that's even better. Just not sure bringing a guy on solely because he's big and physical is going to make much of a difference. Also, working around the cap for an upgrade there would be pretty difficult imo. Basically I'm just saying I'd give POJ/Ruhwedel another shot before trying to force a trade, as I think their results were actually pretty good. Were they the best at clearing their net, no. But the results were good, even if neither of them are bruisers. Neither Pettersson or EK are good net front players either, and they've been dominant. I realize they are way better players haha, I'm just saying I don't think you necessarily need a net front guy on each pair

Criticisms of Rakell's scoring are fair, but I still think he's played fairly well overall and helped that line be as good as it it. I don't think he's been playing bad. That being said I'm not opposed to moving him at all - just might be tough to find a good trade considering his NTC and slow start to the season point wise.