It could be Blomqvist time!
The Pittsburgh Penguins made a move to help solve their crowded goalie crease at the start of free agency by sending Alex Nedeljkovic out to San Jose. In return the Pens get a third round pick way out in 2028.
The Penguins have acquired a 2028 third-round draft pick from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.
Pittsburgh now has 28 draft picks over the next three NHL drafts, including 16 picks in the first three rounds.
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— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) July 1, 2025
This move clears Nedeljkovic’s $2.5 million salary cap hit from Pittsburgh and at least temporarily helps boost young goalies Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov up a rung on the ladder within the organization. Blomqvist can now be penciled into the NHL backup spot, barring any future moves, and Murashov’s path to more playing time in the AHL alongside veteran Filip Larsson is helped.
Nedeljkovic’s .905% 5v5 save% in the past two seasons ranked just 61st among 73 goalies who played in 1000 minutes since 2023. He had swings of play where the team believed in him and leaned on him heavily — most notably when he started all 13 of the final games in the 2023-24 season during an ill-fated push to a playoff spot — but failed to demonstrate the consistency needed to establish a major foothold on the starting job in Pittsburgh.
The 2028 draft is still three drafts away, the need to get anything important or useful back was minimal, the play here was to clear the deck a little bit and reset the goalie crease for the team in 2025-26. Blomqvist had his ups and downs as a rookie last season but has the potential to provide just about what Nedeljkovic did in the past two years, if not better.
Now into the gears of a building team, Pittsburgh needs to find out what they have in younger players and this trade ought to help them accomplish that mission.