With a new season fast approaching, the The Pittsburgh Penguins are preparing for another training camp.
But this time, unlike previous seasons, the 2024-25 season could be full of surprises.
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So we’re going to break down some of the storylines we can expect this season and provide you with some bold – and some not so bold – predictions for the 2024-25 campaign.
Coming up: Which Penguins player is most poised for a bounce-back season?
Kelsey’s Prediction
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First off, I think there are several players on this roster who are primed to bounce back this season. Erik Karlsson, Kevin HayesAnd Matt Grzelcyk comes to mind.
I’m going to argue all day long that Karlsson wasn’t bad at all last season, but I think he’s on pace for a monster year. I think Hayes will play inspired hockey this year and having younger, faster legs around him should help his goal-scoring ability resurface.
And I think the Grzelcyk process is still there – and it might be a better anchor for The pond that Graves – he just had a disastrous season Boston last year and needed a change of scenery.
But I want to talk about a player that some Penguins fans seem to have a short memory about. And that guy is Rickard Rakell.
Rakell set expectations sky high after his 2022-23 campaign, when he put up 28 goals and 60 points over a full season. But an extremely slow start – he did not score more goals than goalkeeper Tristan Jarry until December 27 – and a lingering shoulder injury cut short his 2023-24 season, and he finished with just 15 goals and 37 points in 70 games.
But there were also positives to take away from last season. For one, after Dec. 18, after his month-long absence, he scored 23 goals and 51 points at a pace closer to his previous season. And that was despite his shoulder injury, which likely hampered his ability to shoot.
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It’s also worth noting that Rakell’s game has improved in other facets: he’s become one of the team’s best defensive forwards – Otherwise THE best – and he was second only to the fourth defensive player Noel Acciari in the shots of the Penguins attackers. And according to Silver PuckHe was also, analytically, the Penguins’ fourth-best forward with at least 1,000 minutes of ice time last season.
Even when Rakell isn’t scoring, he does a good job. He’s still a great forechecker, he creates space with his intelligence and physicality, and he’s responsible defensively. Combine all of those qualities with the healthy sniper and goal-scorer that Penguins fans have all too quickly forgotten? You have a pretty complete player.
And seriously, let’s not forget the sheer skill and power of this guy. There’s a reason he scored 30 goals twice and 20 goals five times:
He discovered chemistry with Evgeni Malkin And Michael Bunting at the end of last season, and we all saw the things he can do alongside Sidney Crosby. Realistically, if he’s healthy, I’m predicting a 26-goal, 57-point season. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he tops 30 points for the first time in his Penguins career and third time overall.
A lot of people have given up on Rakell, but I’m not one of them. Even though his contract has aged poorly over the last few seasons, I think he still has a good season or two left.
Ryan’s Prediction
In 2022-23, Erik Karlsson, then with the San Jose Sharkswon the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman. En route to his third win, he became the sixth defenseman to record 100 points in a single season.
Yet somehow Karlsson was traded to the Penguins within two months of accepting the award in last summer’s biggest blockbuster and possible heist of the decade.
But after 82 games in a Penguins jersey, the jury is still out on who won the trade, as the Sharks ended up getting the first overall pick (by design), and Pittsburgh missed the playoffs by three points (which was not part of the plan).
Meanwhile, Karlsson has simultaneously become one of the team’s most beloved and least beloved skaters. Not only has his point production dropped by 46 points, but he’s also gone from five power-play goals to just two and from 27 power-play points to 17.
One of the most puzzling aspects of this whole situation is how Karlsson went from bottom-of-the-table player to playoff contender and then somehow regressed.
Related: The most absurd predictions for the 2024-25 Penguins season
As the Penguins’ highest-paid player at $10 million over the next three seasons, Karlsson should reward fans with at least a point per game. Aside from his 2022-23 campaign, that’s a feat he hasn’t accomplished since 2015-16, when he was with the Penguins. Ottawa Senators and collected 82 points in 82 games.
The stats indicate he hasn’t been able to consistently reach that level of production in nearly a decade, but on a declining Sharks team he scored 101 points and still finished the season with a negative 26.
Sure, there are red flags everywhere, but Karlsson is a three-time Norris Trophy winner. The winningest defensemen? Bobby Orr, Doug Harvey and Nicklas Lidstrom. Hockey legends.
All four players have one thing in common, though: They’ve won the Stanley Cup. At $10 million a year, the Penguins need more from Karlsson, and at 34, he still has time to cement his legacy by leading Pittsburgh to the playoffs and the championship.
There’s no denying the skills are there. Execution shouldn’t be an issue either. Now that his former head coach David Quinn is back behind the bench as an assistant, it’s time for Karlsson to shake off those first-year blues and get back to being the 80-point player he’s capable of being or risk becoming the Jonathan Huberdeau of the Eastern Conference.
Bollen ligger på din Karlsson plan.
