Patrick Marleau gives Penguins depth up front
It’s not often a team can add a 1,100-point scorer to its roster.
Then again, when he is 40 years old and only 20 of the 1,186 points he has accrued over his career have come this season, the price isn’t too overwhelming.
And when he is making a league minimum of $700,000 on a two-way contract, it is a lot easier than it would be under other circumstances.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins gave up a conditional third-round draft pick in 2021 to the San Jose Sharks for three-time All-Star and Olympic champion Patrick Marleau, they didn’t have to bankrupt their pool of assets to acquire him.
After all, they don’t need him to be a franchise icon the way he was in San Jose. They already have a handful of those in place.
The Penguins simply need Marleau to be a contributor.
And that is how he likely will start his career as a member of the Penguins.
When Marleau joined his new team Tuesday for practice in El Segundo, Calif., he wasn’t Sidney Crosby’s left winger or Evgeni Malkin’s left winger.
He was Evan Rodrigues’ left winger on the third line.
That assignment illustrates the balance the Penguins have sought throughout their group of forwards seemingly from the moment Mike Sullivan took over as coach in December 2015.
Presumably, if the Penguins ever are inflicted by an unprecedented outbreak of good health, Nick Bjugstad and Jared McCann will line up with Marleau on a sturdy third line of three former first-round picks.
That balance is how this team has operated over the past five seasons.
In 2015-16, after Sullivan replaced Mike Johnston, the Penguins eventually sorted out their lines in a way that had their major offseason acquisition, Phil Kessel, deployed on a line that did not have Crosby or Malkin.
Instead, Kessel eventually settled on a trio that included Nick Bonino in the middle. Along with Carl Hagelin, they formed the famed HBK line, which essentially became the the team’s second line while Malkin, fighting through the effects of an elbow injury, was the third-line center for all intents and purposes.
Even the failed marriage with Derrick Brassard was true to that pursuit as coaches tried to have him center a line with Kessel and some combination that included Bryan Rust or the newly re-acquired Conor Sheary down the stretch of the 2017-18 season. A groin injury to Brassard derailed those plans.
When it became clear Brassard was not amenable to serving as a third-line center for the entirety of the 2018-19 season, he was jettisoned to the Florida Panthers as part of a February trade that landed Bjugstad and McCann.
While the Penguins were humiliated in the postseason by a first-round sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders, Bjugstad and McCann showed promise, as they were used at times in bottom-six roles.
Injuries — Bjugstad’s own as well as other forwards — have not permitted the Penguins to unite Bjugstad and McCann on a potent third line for most of this season. But that design, which was formulated in the preseason along with Patric Hornqvist, could be on the cusp of being realized as Bjugstad is, by most accounts, rounding back into game shape as he recovers from a core muscle injury.
If Bjugstad, McCann and Marleau can line up in a game of consequence, they could allow Sullivan to deploy their feisty line of Teddy Blueger, Brandon Tanev and Zach Aston-Reese — the latter currently sidelined with an undisclosed injury — as a fourth line.
Such a lineup could present ample matchup problems to even the deepest of opponents in the NHL.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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