It could be argued that in many ways the Penguins have been looking for a Brandon Tanev type of player since they lost Tanev to the Seattle expansion draft in 2021. Coincidentally or not, 2021 was also the last time Pittsburgh won their division. (and, to be fair the correlation level isn’t 100%). But a certain flair for the intangible “heart and soul” element has been missing lately for a bottom-six that has been too blase in recent years.
Brock McGinn was an uninspired successor to Tanev, coming as too bland and vanilla a player to make the impact needed.