Ryan Graves has signed a firm contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins

In free agency, the Pittsburgh Penguins signed one of the best defensemen in free agency, Ryan Graves. New Penguins general manager sent out a statement saying he wanted the Penguins to fight locking up Graves when he signed a six-year, $27 million contract.

 

Graves is a solid defenseman who is having a solid defensive season with a +/- rating of 34. He is also not afraid to put himself on the offensive line, stopping 152 shots last season.

Now with the Penguins, he will have to spend much of the offseason and training camp developing chemistry with his new teammates. It is still unclear whether head coach Mike Sullivan will team up with Graves.

They could pair him with Marcus Pettersson to make the second line an elite team, as Pettersson and Graves are both solid defenders. Or, Graves could play alongside the Penguins’ other superstar acquisition in superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson.

The duo of Karlsson and Graves could work just fine as Karlsson is one of the best offensive defenders in the league but his defense isn’t the best. On the other hand, Graves is better known for his defensive ability as he has a high +/- index and only scored 8 goals last season. The additions of Karlsson and Graves make the Penguins’ defense exponentially better. However, it wasn’t just the addition of these two that made the Penguins better. Dumps like Jeff Petry and Brian Dumoulin, both of whom are no longer the same players, are helping the Penguins find success.

In addition to getting better, believe it or not, the Penguins are also getting younger. They’re still one of the oldest teams in the NHL, but they’ve also tried to add more speed to the lineup, especially in the bottom six.

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Kyle Dubas has made his mark on the Penguins with a new and improved top-four defensive unit. But how will these pieces fit together and what will a Pittsburgh Penguins top four look like?

Kyle Dubas has made his mark on the Penguins with a new and improved top-four defensive unit. But how will these pieces fit together and what will a Pittsburgh Penguins top four look like?

As the 2023-24 season approaches, fans in the greater Pittsburgh area are starting to fill with excitement. Despite a disappointing end to the season, general manager Kyle Dubas breathed new life into the aging Penguins. Dubas’ big fish was Norris Winner Erik Karlsson, he caught him. Penguins fans are starting to salivate at the thought of a revamped power play and clean breaks against Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The real question of what the new Top Four defense will look like is almost lost in the excitement. Fans online seem to have a preconceived notion that the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Top Four will look like this:Even though this Top 4 of the Pittsburgh Penguins promises to be elite, the two defenders on the left wing can also switch places. We won’t know until training camp begins how these four will combine. But let’s look at possible combinations based on past results and see if we can predict future success.

Let’s start with the group for which we have the most data. While Brian Dumoulin has partnered Kris Letang for most of his tenure, injuries and poor performances this past season have pushed Marcus Pettersson to the fore.

According to NaturalStatTrick, Marcus Pettersson and Kris Letang played 408 minutes together during the 2022-2023 season. For comparison, Letang and Dumoulin each played 543 minutes