The Penguins\u2019 roster isn\u2019t expected to look very different after Friday\u2019s deadline. They\u2019re a safe bet to make the playoffs and won\u2019t be selling off any rental UFAs, but after seemingly jumping years ahead of schedule in their retool in a matter of moves, they\u2019re not in the market for any of the significant names still available, either.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re still in the market for some cheap pickups, whether rentals or young change-of-scenery names. It appears a reunion with center\u00a0Teddy Blueger<\/a>\u00a0could help satisfy the latter want, as Josh Yohe of The Athletic<\/a> reports they\u2019re looking at acquiring the pending UFA from the Canucks as a stopgap depth fix with\u00a0Sidney Crosby<\/a>\u2018s suspected MCL sprain<\/a> causing a strain on their forward group.<\/p>\n Vancouver has presumably received interest from a few other playoff-bound clubs as well in the 31-year-old, who ended his first stint in Pittsburgh under similar circumstances as a rental pickup by the Golden Knights on their way to a Stanley Cup in 2023. He spent more than half the season on injured reserve with a lower-body issue but has been hot since returning, picking up five goals and eight points in 14 games for the \u2018Nucks while averaging north of 16 minutes per game, a career-high.<\/p>\n Blueger was a press-box luxury for the Knights on their long playoff run three years ago and could fill a similar role for Pittsburgh when Crosby returns. The success of\u00a0Thomas Novak<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Benjamin Kindel<\/a>\u00a0this season makes it hard to envision Blueger taking up a spot in the top-nine, and they\u2019d be similarly hesitant to break up a fourth line of\u00a0Connor Dewar<\/a>, Blake Lizotte<\/a>, and\u00a0Noel Acciari<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s been exceptional at controlling play at even strength with a 54.2% expected goals share.<\/p>\n As such, the Pens likely won\u2019t be willing to part ways with more than a mid-round pick to land him. Seeing as they have at least five picks in the first three rounds of the next three drafts, they have no shortage of capital. But they might have to reach into that stable of second or third-rounders compared to a fourth or fifth to get it done, considering what fourth-line pieces like Michael McCarron<\/a>,\u00a0Nic Dowd<\/a>, and\u00a0Cole Smith<\/a>\u00a0have fetched this week.<\/p>\n Blueger started his career as a second-round pick of the Pens back in 2012. After finally breaking into the league six years later, he ended up posting 33 goals and 92 points in 250 games for them over five seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins\u2019 roster isn\u2019t expected to look very different after Friday\u2019s deadline. They\u2019re a safe bet to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,100,10316,27],"class_list":["post-487992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-teddy-blueger","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116179411510415599","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}