Fall is here, and the hockey season is right around the corner.

Training camps around the NHL will be opening up in just a few weeks, and we are getting into an interesting point in the offseason. A lot of veteran players are still unsigned, and teams will be handing out some professional try outs to unsigned players.

Kyle Dubas has a ton of experience with PTOs, having handed out a lot during his time in Toronto, and contiunuing that trend here in Pittsburgh.

The Penguins extended one to defenseman Nikolai Knyzhov a few weeks ago, and there’s a decent chance that they aren’t done yet.

In any sense, I waned to take a look today at the players that Pittsburgh signed to PTOs last year, and how that went for both the team and the player. I didn’t include Jesse Puljujarvi, only because he was signed to one midseason, and his signing as much more of an intention of him making the NHL roster.

Austin Wagner

Austin Wagner broke into the National Hockey League in the 2018-19 season, when he played in 62 games and recorded 21 points for the Los Angeles Kings. Wagner spent the next two seasons as a pretty fairly regular NHLer for LA, playing in 65 games for the Kings in 2019-20, and 44 in 2020-21.

However, his production had slipped the more he played, and his 2020-21 season with the Kings only saw him notch 8 points. He spent the entire next season in the AHL, and started the 2022-23 season in the minors as well. He was traded at the deadline to Chicago for future considerations, and he got into 7 games for the Blackhawks down the stretch.

Kyle Dubas had extended him a PTO, seeing if the checking, bottom-six forward could make his mark in the Penguins organization and perhaps add some grit to the team’s forward core.

Unfortunately for Wagner, he never really stood out for the Penguins in the preseason, and once those games wrapped up the team released him from his PTO. He departed North America and signed in the Swedish Hockey League with IK Oskarshamn.

Libor Hájek

A former second round pick by the Tampa Bay Lightning, Libor Hájek was part of the blockbuster trade that sent Ryan McDonagh and JT Miller from the New York Rangers to Tampa.

He made his NHL debut the next season, and over the course of his five years in the NHL tallied 110 games, with a career high 44 coming in 2020-21. He never fully grew into the blueliner that the Rangers had dreamed him up to be, and last offseason the team did not qualify him and let him walk.

He went unsigned until Pittsburgh offered him a PTO, which he accepted. Hájek had his moments in training camp and the preseason, enough to earn him a contract out of that try out. However, he was assigned to the AHL to start the year.

Hájek spent a month and a half in the AHL with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, before he and the team agreed to mutually terminate his contract so that the 26-year old could return to his native Czech Republic and play in the Czech league. He is now in the second year of a five year deal he signed with HC Dynamo Pardubice.

Colin White

Another high draft pick that just couldn’t quite live up to the pressure put on him, White is a former first round pick of the Ottawa Senators.

His best season, in a contract year, saw him tally 41 points in 71 games and net a six year extension that carried a cap hit of $4.75 million. Unfortunately, that contract was almost immediately regretted by the team. White could never replicate the production from his contract year, and the team was forced to buy him out of the last three years of his deal.

He landed with Florida and carved himself out a role in the Panthers’ bottom six, but was a free agent last summer and took a PTO with the Penguins. White looked good in preseason, and it earned him a league minimum deal to open the season.

He started the season in the AHL, and was called up in mid-January to get some NHL games in with the Penguins. He had no points in 11 games before the Penguins waived him, where he ended up being claimed by the Montreal Canadiens.

Ironically, the Canadiens claimed him while they were in Pittsburgh to play the Penguins; White merely had to walk across the hall to join his new team. He played 17 games with Montreal, also with no points.

Currently, White has no contract, but he could be a PTO candidate once again this year.

Mark Pysyk

Mark Pysyk was coming off a year that was wiped out entirely due to injury. He never played a game for the Detroit Red Wings after signing a one year deal with them worth $850K.

Despite that, Pysyk did boast a lot of NHL experience (though his best career game ironically came as a forward), having over 500 NHL games to his name at the time the Penguins signed him to a PTO.

His defense-first, very protective style of hockey served well in lower pairings for several NHL teams during his career, and the Penguins figured they might as well give him a shot. Pysyk, much like Hájek, had a lot of defensive depth to compete with in training camp and the preseason, and did not succeed in the battle, being released by the team prior to the season starting.

Soon after, he signed a separate PTO with Pittsburgh’s AHL team (which allows players to play games for the team without having an official contract). He played 8 games for the WBS Pens before being released in early November.

A month after his second release from the Penguins organization, he signed a one year, two-way deal with the Calgary Flames organization, where he got into 29 games for the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers.

(Featured photo by Charles LeClaire/USA Today Sports)