Pittsburgh Penguins Sign Noel Acciari to 3-Year Contract

Throughout his career, Noel Acciari has been one of the more underrated bottom-six forwards in the NHL. His style is one that fits with a prototypical bottom-six forward and that made him a free-agent target a contending team couldn’t pass up. Saturday, Acciari agreed to a three-year, $6 million contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins with an average annual value (AAV) of $2 million.

Acciari raised his value at the end of the 2022-23 regular season with the Toronto Maple Leafs and helped them end their postseason drought of winning a first-round series. He is getting a big bump from the one-year deal he signed last offseason with the St. Louis Blues.

Acciari Has Plenty of Experience

Entering his 10th season with the TEAM, the 5-foot-10, 209-pound center is 31 years old and coming off a season where he had 14 goals and nine assists combined between the St. Louis Blues and Maple Leafs. There were a lot of teams interested in him at the trade deadline, but Toronto was able to get him as part of a deal that included Ryan O’Reilly.

Acciari helped Providence College win a National Championship in 2015 at the TD Garden in Boston, then three months later, he signed an undrafted free-agent contract with the Boston Bruins. He spent the beginning of the 2015-16 season with the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL) and registered seven goals and 19 points before making the jump to Boston for 19 games with one assist. After playing 29 games the next season for the Bruins, he played a big part of the bottom six in 2018-19 with six goals and eight assists in 72 regular-season games, then he had two goals and four points in 19 playoffs games as the Bruins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final before losing to the Blues in seven games.

After spending three seasons with the Florida Panthers, he signed a one-year, $1.25 million contract with St. Louis and played really well with 10 goals and eight assists, which raised his trade value after the Blues fell out of postseason contention.

Depth had been an issue for the Penguins, especially last season. New general manager (GM) Kyle Dubas is addressing that by signing Acciari and acquiring Reilly Smith from the Vegas Golden Knights. Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, and Evgeni Malkin did not have much support last season in terms of production, but Acciari along with Smith check some of the missing boxes.

Dubas is very familiar with Acciari as he acquired him at the trade deadline as GM of the Maple Leafs and now he brings him to Pittsburgh with him. There is still more work needed for the 2023-24 Penguins roster as they are in need of a goalie with Casey DeSmith. Tristian Jarry could still return, but if was, you would think that Dubas would have locked him up by now. Pittsburgh’s new GM is addressing the needs for his new team that kept them from missing the postseason.

After adding Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton to be their second and third-line centers prior to free agency beginning, the Colorado Avalanche ensured that if Lars Eller was going to return, it would likely be as their fourth-line center despite the fact that he was their second line center by the end of the playoffs. The Pittsburgh Penguins gave the veteran center a two-year contract worth $2.45 million per year to return to the east coast, paying him roughly the same average annual salary that the Avs gave to Miles Wood earlier in the day.

It has to be considered a bit of a disappointment for Colorado to not bring back a player they traded a 2025 second-round pick for, but the team clearly prioritized both Johansen and Colton as off-season targets, which squeezed Eller out of the picture considering their insistence that Colton is a center. Eller will likely slot in as Pittsburgh’s 3rd line center, as the team has added a lot of new faces today in their quest to get Sidney Crosby another ring(s) before he retires.

Will you miss Eller? Let us know in the comments below!

Both Wood and Colton are way better fits for us over Eller, who I didn’t mind, but didn’t bring as much as I hoped. There was circumstance, as his wings were lilliputians who couldn’t win pucks nor cycle the puck, so I can see why the Penguins got him at that price. I’m glad we didn’t pay him, as we virtually get Wood at the same AAV.