(Featured photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

It’s never too early to think about the offseason.

Well, if your team didn’t make the playoffs, that is.

For the third straight season, the Pittsburgh Penguins missed out on the Stanley Cup Playoffs, finishing 34-36-12 and seventh in the Metropolitan Division. They have since parted ways with head coach Mike Sullivan and seem determined to further embrace this transitionary period, stockpiling younger talent and draft picks as they work their way back to contention.

With that in mind, this will be a very interesting offseason for the Penguins and general manager Kyle Dubas. How involved will the Penguins be in free agency? Or will the bulk of their work come in the trade market?

Whatever route and however many moves they decide to make, some old contracts that the Penguins have retained on are finally coming off the books.

The Penguins will free up nearly $3 million in cap space on July 1st when the ghosts of Jeff Petry and Reilly Smith both expire.

Pittsburgh has paid part of Petry’s salary for two years now. One of the bigger acquisitions made by former general manager Ron Hextall, Petry spent just one year with the Penguins. Hextall had acquired him, along with depth forward Ryan Poehling from Montreal, in exchange for defenseman Mike Matheson and a fourth round pick in 2023.

In 61 games, Petry recorded 31 points from the blue line and posted a +2 rating while averaging 22:21 a night.

Petry was moved in Dubas’ first offseason in charge, being one of the 12 assets involved in the three-team Erik Karlsson trade in the summer of 2023. Petry was traded back to the Canadiens in that deal, with the Penguins retaining 25% of his contract, which equated to $1.562 million.

Nine days later, Montreal flipped him to Detroit, but the Penguins were still on the hook for 25% of his contract for the next two years.

This past summer, the Penguins took on additional retained salary after they moved out Reilly Smith.

Smith was the very first move Dubas made as Penguins general manager. After Vegas won the Stanley Cup in 2023, the Golden Knights were in a bit of a cap crunch. With several players due serious raises, Smith found himself an odd-man out.

Dubas was able to acquire him on the cheap, sending the Golden Knights a third round pick in 2024 for a winger who averaged nearly 60 points over a full 82-game season.

But Smith underwhelmed in Pittsburgh. Though he started out hot (11 points in his first ten games), Smith would tally just 29 in his last 66 games. His 40 total points were his lowest in a full-length season since 2016-17.

Even though the Smith trade didn’t really work out for the Penguins, Dubas was able to flip Smith for higher than he paid for him. Working with the divisional rival New York Rangers, Dubas sent Smith to the Big Apple for a 2027 second round pick and a 2025 fifth round pick.

To make that deal work, however, Pittsburgh did have to agree to retain 25% of Smith’s remaining salary. He was in the final year of his contract that paid him $5 million, meaning the Penguins were on the hook for one year, at $1.25 million.

The combined retention of Petry and Smith took up 3.2% of the team’s cap in 2024-25. That, plus the buyout penalty of Jack Johnson (yes, even after all these years, the Penguins are still paying for Johnson), was eating up just under $4 million in cap space for the Penguins.

That money could have certainly made the difference in potential trades or free agency moves the team wanted to make this season. This summer, however, they can maneuver however they want with some extra money.

But with the salary cap skyrocketing, it’s the retention slots that might actually prove to be more valuable. Teams can only retain on three contracts on any given time. With the Penguins still paying part of Smith and Petry’s salaries, the team could only retain on one other player if they were eager to make a deal.

This offseason, all three slots will be open.

That will come in handy, depending on how active Dubas plans to be on moving out some current members of the organization.

The trade for Karlsson hasn’t super worked out. While it’s certainly not primarily on his shoulders, his arrival didn’t help the team get back into the playoffs. The defenseman is accounting for $10 million against the cap until the end of the 2026-27 season.

Karlsson has a no-trade clause, so if he truly does not want to leave, that is absolutely his right. But if a potential trade to a contending team comes along, having the ability to retain on Karlsson is paramount to any trade, should he accept.

Karlsson, at this stage of his career, is not appealin at $10 million. But at maybe $6 or $7 million, that’s much more manageable.

Goaltender Tristan Jarry is in a similar situation. The five-year, nearly $27 million extension Dubas gave Jarry has not aged well. Less than two years in, Jarry was waived and sent to the American Hockey League, and split this past season between the NHL and AHL.

Jarry is in a similar spot to Karlsson; his contract at full-price is not attractive, but if the Penguins are willing to retain, just maybe there’s a deal to be made there.

The full arsenal of retention slots could also allow the Penguins to help broker a deal between two other things, being paid for their services to help legally launder some money.

Whatever the Penguins do or don’t do, having extra options is always a positive. Seeing what this team does over the next few months will be fascinating.