Is there anything the Penguins can spend their remaining salary cap space on?

They still have more than $3.5 million under the cap.

As we go into the month of August and continue to inch our way closer to the start of NHL training camps for the 2024-25 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins and general manager Kyle Dubas find themselves in some rather uncharted territory. That territory is that they actually have more than $3.5 million in wiggle room underneath the NHL’s salary cap for the season.

They have no restricted free agents to sign.

They have already pieced together an offseason with the trade for Kevin Hayes and the free agent signings of Anthony Beauvillier, Blake Lizotte and more.

The only major important piece of business still remaining on the to-do list this offseason is finalizing a contract extension with center and long-time team captain Sidney Crosby. But even that does not have a firm timeline because they have 11 months to figure it out and it will not impact this year’s salary cap situation. While that is something that you might like to see finalized sooner rather than later just to put an end to any speculation that might be existing, there is time.

The Penguins are not accustomed to entering the season with this much salary cap space, almost always spending to the upper reaches of the salary cap, and after spending so many years in Toronto it has to be a new feeling for Dubas as well.

It does create some in-season flexibility for a trade if needed, but what if the Penguins still wanted to add something this summer to try and maximize their roster and spend every dollar imaginable?

Is there anything still available, either by trade or free agency, that could be attractive to them?

The free agent market has mostly been picked over and there is not much meat left on that bone when it comes to available talent. At this point you are talking about the most flawed players in the pool, and ones that either have major question marks, or are simply nearing the end of their careers.

Or both.

The Penguins could still use another top-six winger, but there really are not many options still floating around.

Tyler Johnson has had a great career, and is coming off a respectable 17-goal, 31-point season in 67 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. From an offensive perspective, that is not terrible. But he is going to be 35 years old this season and posted some miserable underlying numbers both in terms of generating chances and shots, as well as defensively. Part of that could be the result of playing on a lousy Blackhawks team. But even within that context his underlying numbers were not particularly good. Is that really what the Penguins need?

James van Riemsdyk scored 11 goals with 37 points for the Boston Bruins and could be another intriguing reclamation project that they could try and pump up and trade at the deadline. While he is also older and a fraction of the player he once was, his underlying numbers were actually okay in Boston, and he actually increased his shot rates. He just saw his shooting percentage take a little bit of a drop. With some positive regression to the mean there he could be back to 15-20 goals with a similar shot rate this season. Of the remaining options, he might be the most intriguing.

Max Pacioretty was, at his peak, one of the best goal-scoring wingers in hockey but has seen his career slow down dramatically due to age and injuries. I liked the idea of signing him on a one-year deal a year ago to see if he could get his career back on track, but after seeing how that experiment went with the Washington Capitals I do not think I want to go down that path this season. He scored four goals in 47 games and has only played in 91 out of a possible 246 games the past three seasons.

Jakub Vrana is probably one of the most talented players still on the market, but his career has really slipped in recent years and he is a mess defensively. He is basically what Daniel Sprong would have been without the 20-25 goals offensively.

In terms of trade options, Patrik Laine is still the player that has the highest potential upside without being somebody that is at the end of their career. In fact, he is still in what should be his prime years. He has his flaws as a player, but he is also a bonafide top-six winger and would immediately be the most talented winger option on the roster. Getting him, however, would not be easy. Even though he and the Blue Jackets are working toward a trade, Columbus might not be eager to send him within the division. It would also require the Penguins to get creative with salary because his contract for the season is more than double what the Penguins have available in space. They would either need Columbus to retain a significant chunk of money, get Columbus to take a significant contract back, dump a contract on somebody else, or a combination of all three.

As unlikely — and maybe unrealistic — as it might seem, I still think it is something worth looking into just because the upside offensively is so high, and the Penguins are desperate for somebody that can potentially put the puck in the net. Especially given how limited the remaining options are.

Either way, the Penguins still have some money and they could put it to use this summer if they wanted.

The final option is simply keeping it in their back pocket and potentially positioning themselves for a big in-season score if, by some chance, this season ends up going better than anybody anticipates. Maybe the goaltending comes together. Maybe the power play gets fixed. Maybe all of those things turns a fringe playoff team that has missed two years in a row back into a potential playoff contender. That $3.5 million in salary cap space could position them for a potentially huge in-season addition