2024-25 Penguins’ Lineup Project: First line left wing

Who should play for the Penguins in a crucial spot?

As the dead of summer on the hockey calendar settles in, we’re going to start a new project to help tick off the days and also eventually set the table for the upcoming season. Looking at and knowing what the lines will be is a tried and true hockey tradition, and almost as many people think they can pick out the better combinations than, you know, the actual coaches in charge.

That’s where we begin with this idea to crowd source the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2024-25 season lines.

To cut out some of the unnecessary and obvious positions, a few of the lineup spots are going to be locked into place even before we begin. The depth chart of what we will be working with will start like this on our virtual white board in the coach’s office:

LW1 - Sidney Crosby - RW1
LW2 - Evgeni Malkin - RW2
LW3 - C3 - RW3
LW4 - C4 - RW4
Depth forward

LD1 / Erik Karlsson
LD2 / Kris Letang
LD3 / RD3
Depth defender

Goalie1
Goalie2

Settling these ahead of time will save a little time. No, Malkin isn’t a candidate to switch to wing, but otherwise the rest of the calls should be understandable and straight forward and save us all the time of the inevitable outcome for those spots. If you want to consider Letang’s pair the top pair instead of Karlsson’s, knock yourself out, but you get the point.

Obviously players like Bryan Rust and Michael Bunting are going to appear on the final lineup, but will it be on the first, second or even third line? That’s going to be up to the collective group as we set the ideal lines going into the year.

The next question to resolve is what to make of players who aren’t on the roster yet, “write in” candidates as future additions. This is a tough call, but we’re going to operate under the assumption that what you see is going to be what you get to work with at this point. We are essentially taking the role as a coach to configure lines, and the coach doesn’t get to shop for ingredients, they can only use what they’ve got. Plus, Pittsburgh is nearly capped out and doesn’t want to trade a lot away, so there’s not that much of realistic avenues to add some pipedream players.

Further, we’re going to modestly direct the options towards realism. Brayden Yager (a right hand shot who has mostly played center in juniors) is not going to be available to be plugged as a left wing, for instance. We will include him later on for center and even right wing possibilities, but we’re going to attempt to steer this baby straight enough to be passable.

With that in mind, we start this mission by looking at the spot on the first line left wing. For about the last seven years this wasn’t much of a discussion for the Pens, it was always Jake Guentzel’s spot to have. But Guentzel is now gone and this could be one of the more wide open and interesting areas in the lineup.

Drew O’Connor is the incumbent for this position, based on the 2023-24 season finish. O’Connor showed well with Sidney Crosby and is a player on the upswing that is finally putting it all together at the NHL level.

O’Connor mostly got that shot because after a few games Crosby and Michael Bunting didn’t display a lot of instant chemistry. But Bunting plays an aggressive style and is no stranger to getting to the front of the net, with more time to get the two on the same page, is that worth revisiting or seeing what could happen if given the chance to grow slowly in training camp instead of the trial by fire in the middle of last season? Up for you.

From there, we’ve seen Rickard Rakell play a modest amount of left wing and he has the offensive skill to be a contender here. Based on LW/RW splits, we’re going to hold off on adding Bryan Rust as an option here until the next vote for his usual RW1 spot in the lineup.

We’ll toss Anthony Beauvillier up here as an option, too. Beauvillier might be an option if you’re looking for some balancing of talent, but given that he did not have a good 2023-24 season and he’s been a limited player, first line minutes could be a bridge too far for what to ask of him, but for the sake of adding all marginally reasonable candidates, he’ll get a shot at it too.

OK, that about sums up the candidates, now you know what to do. Pick who should be Crosby’s left wing, feel free to weigh in by stating your case of why you voted the way you did.