Penguins sign Emil Bemstrom and Blake Lizotte

The “load up on fringe forwards” part of the off-season is in full force

The Penguins did not give Emil Bemstrom a qualifying offer, but they still got the forward to come back to them for the 2024-25 season by signing him as an unrestricted free agent. It’s good terms for the team, at league minimum for next season, which was lower than the QO and impending arbitration would have been.

Bemstrom scored three goals and recorded five points with Pittsburgh last season in 24 games. He’s also been a tremendous AHL player and point-producer, should it come to that (though he would have to clear waivers and still receive his full NHL payday in the minors).

GM Kyle Dubas also said the team has signed forward Blake Lizotte. Lizotte has played for the Kings in the last six seasons and has been more of an NHL option than not lately.

Terms for Lizotte have not yet been released, though a relatively low amount on a one-year deal makes sense as a guesstimate. UPDATE: Lizotte got two years and an AAV of $1.85 million.

These type of additions sets things up for another training camp battle for a lot of fringe level forwards like Bemstrom, Lizotte, Valtteri Puustinen, Jesse Puljujarvi, Sam Poulin and Jonathan Gruden competing for a dwindling number of NHL lineup and roster spots. That fit Dubas’ method last season of rotating through a number of different NHL options to see which ones could get hot and potentially stick (as Radim Zohorna briefly did and Puustinen did for longer; Joona Koppanen, Matthew Phillips and Colin White..not so much).