Is Pittsburgh's New Abbreviation "PTO"?

When Kyle Dubas was hired by the Pittsburgh Penguins, it seemed very clear that changes would be made on a number of fronts by the new man in charge. Dubas has changed the look of the team entirely with the acquisitions of Reilly Smith and Erik Karlsson, he's jettisoned contracts that were eating up far too much salary cap space, and he bolstered the front office with new hirings and promotions. With Dubas having the keys to the kingdom, the Penguins may indeed take one or more runs at a Stanley Cup parade before the likes of Crosby, Letang, and Malkin hang up the skates. Strangely, though, the tight-against-the-cap Penguins keep inviting players to join training camp as they seem to be hunting for players whose best seasons have yet to be seen in NHL arenas.

The Penguins have already invited three players to camp on PTO - professional tryout offers - in former Los Angeles Kings forward Austin Wagner who played just seven games in Chicago last season, former Florida Panthers defender Mark Pysyk played in Buffalo last season, and former New York Rangers defender Libor Hajek who simply couldn't find a place to stick on the Rangers' roster. It was expected these three would push current lower-roster players for playing time if nothing else.

However, Kyle Dubas went out and got another player to attend camp on a PTO in former Senators and Panthers forward Colin White. The former 21st-overall pick in 2015 has never hit 15 goals in a season nor has he broken the 40-point barrier, so one has to wonder why he's being asked to come in and play a bottom-six role on a team that seems to have an abundance of bottom-six forwards at their disposal including the likes of Rem Pitlick, Andreas Johnsson, and Vinnie Hinostroza. Admittedly, White has more offensive upside than some of these players, so why all the invites when Dubas has a set of players already under contract who can step into that role?

With the Penguins projected to be approximately $80,000 over the salary cap limit to start the season, Dubas has no room to sign any of these players if they have a good camp and head coach Mike Sullivan wants to keep any of them. Yes, there's a shot that the Penguins could LTIR a player if someone gets hurt, but the likely scenario would be trading a player or two out in order to become cap compliant. Not one of the players listed on Pittsburgh's roster are on entry-level contracts, so there wouldn't be any savings in cap space if someone was sent to Wilkes-Barre. Again, one has to wonder why there would be so many PTOs given out when the Penguins have no money to sign any of them.

I'm all for having coaches and general managers bringing in as much talent as possible and having that talent compete for roster spots, but I struggle to understand why talent is being invited to training camp if there's zero intention of signing those players. Perhaps there's a shot that one of them will take a minor-league deal and sign an AHL contract with Wilkes-Barre, but I can't see any of the four players mentioned - White, Wagner, Pysyk, or Hajek - taking a contract like that if there's zero chance at playing in the NHL.

The oldest of the four men invited to Penguins' camp is Mark Pysyk at 31 while the youngest is Libor Hajek at 25. All four potentially have multiple years of NHL-calibre hockey left if they believe they all can still contribute, so it would certainly benefit all four of them to come into camp, play well, get some shifts in preseason games, and see if there may be other teams who want to sign them if the Penguins either cannot or will not offer contracts. I have no issue with any of the four players using the Penguins as an audition to show their stuff to other teams, but it seems strange that the Penguins would allow this to go on if they had no intention of signing any of these players.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what kind of cap magic Kyle Dubas has tucked up his sleeves because it seems very unlikely that any of these four men coming to Pittsburgh on PTO offers will be signed by the Penguins. They could, however, be signed by someone else, and you'd have to question the strategy of Kyle Dubas extending PTO offers if he were to strengthen any of the other Metropolitan Division teams.

Offering PTOs is never a bad thing unless a team is tight against the salary cap. The Penguins certainly are at this point in the summer, and that's going to leave Dubas with another type of PTO if he wants to sign any of these players. That kind of PTO is known as "pretty terrible options".

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!