Penguins' early actions in offseason indicate team's main objective

Many observers of the Pittsburgh Penguins entered this offseason thinking the organization’s biggest need was to improve the goaltending. Others stressed a desire to add more size and physicality. Some want increased scoring for the playoffs.

The front office probably agrees with all of the above.

This is why it appears the likes of general manager Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke have an initial overarching objective this offseason.

Clear salary cap space.

Because — given the Penguins’ current cap situation — without accomplishing that task immediately, none of those other things will be possible.

Hextall and Burke haven’t verbalized that message directly. But their actions are speaking louder than any words could.

Look first at the Jared McCann trade. Shipping him off to Toronto for prospect Filip Hallander gets the Pens to $3.94 million in the black against the cap.

That’s better. But that’s still the second-worst cap situation in the NHL behind only that of the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning according to Cap Friendly.

So, again, the cap reality probably factored into why Burke and Hextall did what they did when sculpting the team’s protected list in advance of Wednesday’s Seattle Kraken expansion draft.

Cost is likely part of the reason why the franchise decided to protect forward Jeff Carter instead of the likes of winger Brandon Tanev, defenseman Marcus Pettersson and winger Jason Zucker.

With Los Angeles retaining some of Carter’s salary, he only costs $2.63 million against the cap in Pittsburgh. Tanev is at $3.5 million, Pettersson is at $4.02 million and Zucker comes in at $5.5 million.

Otherwise, how else could you explain the strategy behind protecting a 36-year-old forward with one year remaining on his contract, who may have retired rather than rebooting his career with an expansion club? Carter hardly seemed like a threat to be selected.

Well, TribLive’s hockey beat writer Seth Rorabaugh did offer one other explanation during Tuesday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast.

“With Evgeni Malkin most likely to miss some portion of the regular season, they don’t want to risk any kind of chance of losing Jeff Carter,” Rorabaugh explained. “And then, all of a sudden, Teddy Blueger is your No. 2 center. The risk of (Carter) going to Seattle might have been minimal. It might have been 1%. But, apparently, even that was too great for the Penguins to entertain.”

One Penguins player needs to be taken in the expansion draft. The Kraken get to take one player from every team in the NHL except the Vegas Golden Knights — a recent expansion team themselves.

One has to wonder if Seattle general manager Ron Francis is interested in Tanev, Pettersson or Zucker. If he isn’t, a cheaper player such as forward Zach Aston-Reese may be more to Francis’ liking. Aston-Reese is a pending restricted free agent who made $1 million each of the past two seasons.

Should the Kraken go that route, I asked Rorabaugh if it’s possible for the Penguins to trade any — or all — of those other three players for draft picks or prospects so that the Penguins could free up cap space.

“It’s very possible,” Rorabaugh said. “My only concern on that front is, who has cap space right now? No one in terms of being a serious contender right now has salary cap space. Every team is trying to shed salary to create some maneuverability.”

Also on our podcast, Rorabaugh and I try to determine which Penguins prospects could fill the voids created by the departures of these current veterans. We look at some of the other big names across the league who might be scooped up by Seattle. And we debate the merits of “Kraken” as a nickname.

Listen: Tim Benz and Seth Rorabaugh discuss the Penguins’ situation heading into the NHL expansion draft