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Evan Rodrigues will not be returning to the Penguins, probaby should have |
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Today Evan Rodrigues was finally signed. He did get a bump in salary. No, it wasn’t something the Penguins couldn’t have handled if they wanted to. He signed with the defending champs.
The 2M cap hit is more than reasonable for a player who can contribute in a positive way even when the scoring dries up. He does a lot of things well. I think he is a quality depth player for a quality team.
Contrast this with who they did spend their money on… Kasperi Kapanen. Kapanen’s value is completely tied to his ability to generate tangible offense. Something he has never shown any consistency in. Mike Sullivan regularly benches Kapanen and clearly does not trust or respect his overall game. Kapanen costs 1.2M more for this. It remains one of the more frustrating self-owns of the offseason.
Yes, Rodrigues’ offense dried up to a frustratingly degree the second half of the season. Also true, is that Rodrigues’ offense saved the Penguins from falling in the standings when Evgeni Malkin was out of action the first half of the year. After the offense dried up people lost patience with him, but he wasn’t playing poorly. The xGF% remained among the best on the team and you can see he did a lot of other things well. The finishing drought may have clouded people’s judgements on his effectiveness.
There are a lot of ways Ron Hextall could have played things in regards to his depth. The way he played them resulted in Kasperi Kapanen being here for 2 years at 3.2M and Rodrigues playing for the defending champs for only 2M. Can’t say I’m a fan of the choices that led here.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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