I have a new last name to learn how to type out. The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed a veteran defenseman. It is former Boston Bruin, Matt Grzelcyk.

The deal is for only one season at 2.8M. Grzeclcyk was an excellent defender for the Bruins for a number of years. He is clearly trending in a certain direction. The chart looks like a great sledding hill.

Unlike the Kevin Hayes acquisition the Penguins will not be receiving a second round pick up front, but I do think there is potential to trade him at the deadline for a draft pick. This is why I believe the Penguins have gone this route instead of qualifying Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Even if Joseph is actually better than Grzelcyk at this stage of their careers the perceived value of Grzelcyk is still higher for right or wrong. So when I believe the Penguins will ultimately shop Grzelcyk in March they will get a better return than for Joseph in my opinion. We've all seen how this league operates. Does everybody remember players like David Savard netting first round picks a few years ago? Penguins are likely looking for a scaled down version of that. That is the glass half-full timeline. The glass half-empty is that Grzelcyk is from Boston which would play into the Mike Sullivan is from Boston platitudes and Grzelcyk also previously played for new assistant coach David Quinn at Boston University.

The Penguins are officially in an unofficial rebuild mode. They won’t use the word, but it is looking a hell of a lot closer to a rebuild than a retool at this point. Yeah, they have high end aging superstars which masks things a little bit. However, none of the recent moves speak to a team actually competing. I think the team will try to give Crosby some decent players to play with so his shifts aren’t miserable and then make all the other moves geared for the future.

Welcome to the new reality. Going to be a lot of blah.

Thanks for reading!

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