The Pittsburgh Penguins entered the offseason with a new general manager, some big needs, and a pretty significant amount of salary cap space at their disposal, the likes of which they have not really seen during the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin-Kris Letang era.
Kyle Dubas had more than $20 million to spend when the offseason began even without dumping any of the team’s most problematic contracts (Mikael Granlund, Jeff Petry, etc.) to create that space.
I still think there is a real chance at least one of those contracts gets dumped in the coming weeks and months, and if the Penguins are going to have any chance of acquiring somebody like Erik Karlsson, they are going to have to do exactly that.