It might not be an exciting day for the Pens on one of the league’s busiest
Happy July everyone. As the calendar flips over into the heat of summer, the NHL prepares to open up shop with free agency kicking off at 12:00 Eastern time today.
Here’s what to know if you’re circling back and need a refresher for the Penguins.
Notable Unrestricted Free Agents
Matt Grzelcyk
Matt Nieto
Phil Tomasino*
Connor Dewar*
P.O Joseph*
Emil Bemstrom*
(* indicates UFA status due to not receiving a qualifying offer)
—While the Pens were talking with Dewar and Tomasino, it appears they and all the rest on this list will be hitting the open market. Could the team circle back in a day or two and bring a player or two from this list back? Possibly, but conditions would have to change a lot after GM Kyle Dubas said yesterday he anticipated being more active in trades/restricted free agency rather than making long-term deals with unrestricted free agents.
Will the pending UFAs be free to hit the market on Tuesday?
Kyle Dubas: “Yeah. With our current strategy, we’re going to see what’s out there and see where we’re at.”
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) June 30, 2025
External free agency
Well, not to be a wet blanket but don’t expect the Penguins to be very exciting today when it comes to being active in big time free agent signings.
Then again, the last July 1 that they were exciting in signing was the day that Tristan Jarry, Ryan Graves, Noel Acciari, Alex Nedeljkovic, Lars Eller and Matt Nieto all signed and, well, that didn’t exactly work out so great either.
In the long run it might be more beneficial for manager’s to throw their phones off a cliff today and go replace it tomorrow. One can’t do any long-term damage to their franchise by sitting out the bidding wars of July 1.
That appears to be the mindset of Dubas this time around too, saying yesterday that he doesn’t plan to sign any UFA’s for a long term (which takes him out of the running to sign most of the quality ones) and will be focused on RFA’s and trades as he looks to shape the roster for next season and beyond with younger players.
Kyle Dubas, on Pittsburgh’s approach in free agency: “I would be surprised – unless they were RFAs or trades – that we would do long-range deals with players. But we’ve got a number of players in mind that I think we can give opportunity to.”
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) June 30, 2025
Restricted free agents
Internally, there isn’t much happening. Pittsburgh sent a QO to Vasily Ponomarev, ceremonial at this point being as Ponomarev recently signed a three-year deal to play for a KHL team. But, you never know with contracts — Filip Hallander signed a five-year deal to leave Pittsburgh and play in Sweden in the spring of 2023. Fast forward two years and now he’s coming back to play in the Pens’ organization again. Ponomarev is out of the picture for 2025-26, but the future could be open since Pittsburgh will keep his NHL rights.
The bigger issue for the Pens will be how RFA’s shape what they can do with their team. In Buffalo, Bowen Byram and Ryan McLeod need new deals. Marco Rossi in Minnesota too. K’Andre Miller and Will Cuylle in New York. Mackie Samoskevich in Florida.
Even if those specific players might not be targets for the Penguins, teams will be looking to clear salary cap space to make it happen. Pittsburgh has just over $20 million in such space and could serve as brokers — like they did last year taking on Cody Glass and Kevin Hayes and picking up extra draft picks from teams looking to drop some of their overpaid players.
Trades
Free agency is flashy and catches all the attention of today, but trades are going to be the real area to monitor today and moving forward this summer around the Pens. Dubas admitted he will have some very difficult decisions to make about players that will be in demand from other teams while also holding value on the ice to his own team next season in Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust.
Kyle Dubas on potential trades involving Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell or Bryan Rust: “I know more about the free agent market because of the calls we get on our veteran guys. Teams say the the market is nuts. We might have more interest in doing a deal or a trade. …”
— Wes Crosby (@OtherNHLCrosby) June 30, 2025
Dubas went onto say:
“So, we’re going to evaluate everything. We’re going to do what’s best for the Penguins. But I mean, one of those players’ cases specifically, [Rust] means a lot to the team. He’s been a part of the team for 15 years. Unless it’s something that blows us away in terms of what it returns, then it could very easily be looked at to have us return to contention. That’d be a tough one. But we’ve got lots of calls on him. … He’s also a massive member of the Penguins.”
That more or less sounds like what Dubas said about Rakell at March’s trade deadline. The Pens reportedly weren’t close to hearing something that “blew them away” and made them want to pull the trigger on a trade to send Rakell away back then.
Will any manager step up to the plate and make it impossible for Dubas to say no about Rust or Rakell this summer?
That’s the $64,000 question to stay tuned to find out about over the coming hours, and possibly days, weeks and months before training camp starts.