The Penguins have quite a few questions to answer between now and the start of training camp in September.
When will No. 2 center Evgeni Malkin be able to return after having knee surgery?
Who will replace Cody Ceci on the second defense pairing with Mike Matheson?
Does management truly believe that Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith are the goalies to help the Penguins contend for a Stanley Cup?
But there is at least one thing about which there should be no uncertainty.
That's because the Penguins have more than enough capable forwards to fill out their third and fourth lines.
In fact, the competition for those spots might be some of the most fierce of the preseason.
That many of the contenders can play more than one position should only make the battles more intriguing and the decisions more challenging for Mike Sullivan and his staff.
With Radim Zohorna accepting a two-way contract Tuesday, he joins a group that already includes centers Jeff Carter and Teddy Blueger and wingers Zach Aston-Reese (who still must be re-signed), Brock McGinn, Danton Heinen, Evan Rodrigues, Sam Lafferty, Anthony Angello, Drew O'Connor and Dominik Simon.
Rookies Samuel Poulin and Nathan Legare could make it into the mix, too, although both might be better-suited to top-six roles. And that's without have other prospects, including newcomer Filip Hallander, forcing their way into consideration.
• NHL regulations allow teams to exceed the salary-cap ceiling, which again will be $81.5 million in 2021-22, by 10 percent during the offseason. Good thing, too, because per CapFriendly.com, no fewer than seven clubs -- Tampa Bay, Dallas, Montreal, Edmonton, Toronto, Chicago and Vegas -- were above the cutoff as of Tuesday afternoon. At the other end of the fiscal spectrum, Detroit, Buffalo and Ottawa will have to add to their payrolls to get to the cap floor of $60.2 million. Because the clubs that are over the limit will have to pare their rosters to get into compliance, there should be some capable players going on the trade market between now and the start of the regular season. How much that might help a team like the Penguins is hard to say, though, since a team looking to shed money probably isn't going to be interested in taking back a contract in any exchange of personnel, and clubs such as the Penguins that are close to the ceiling likely won't have the cap space needed to take on the deal of an impact contributor.
• The Penguins still haven't acted on the oft-expressed desire of Ron Hextall and Brian Burke to infuse their lineup with size and muscle, but the New York Rangers, whose management had a similar interest, certainly have. New York has added two guys who made brief appearances on the Penguins' depth chart, Ryan Reaves and Jarred Tinordi, and who surely make their team more physically imposing. Their acquisition will ratchet up interest in New York's opener, which will be played Oct. 13 in Washington. Capitals winger Tom Wilson generated lots of attention during a game last season, when he punched then-Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich in the head as he laid on the ice and body-slammed Artemi Panarin. Given that Reaves is purported to have once told a potential employer than he was "the solution to your Tom Wilson problem," the potential for major mayhem that night is pretty obvious.
• A segment of the Penguins' fanbase was sorely disappointed -- and, in some cases, outraged -- when two veteran free agents who might have been good fits in the Penguins' lineup, Zach Bogosian and Corey Perry, signed team-friendly deals with Tampa Bay. There are, however, several reasons to believe that neither would have accepted a contract from the Penguins anything like the one he signed with the Lightning. 1) Tampa Bay has won the past two Stanley Cups, and is a viable threat to make a run at a third. 2) There are worse places to spend winter than Florida's Gulf coast (and many of them have NHL franchises). 3) Florida does not have a state income tax. Considering all of that, it's easy to understand why a veteran who has earned big money for a number of years would be willing to accept less to have a good shot at winning a championship.
• Much of the conversation about the Bruins focuses on Boston's No. 1 line, which is quite understandable. After all, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak make up one of the NHL's most effective units. But while David Krejci didn't get as much attention as those three, he was an extremely valuable contributor for a lot of years, and his decision to return to his native Czech Republic has left a large hole in the Bruins' lineup that GM Don Sweeney will have to address before the season begins. And with limited salary-cap space available, Sweeney likely will have to give up a quality asset or two in a trade to bring in a qualified successor to Krejci in the middle of his No. 2 line.
• Free agency activity has, for the most part, settled down in most of the NHL, but not on Long Island, where it really hasn't started. There has been considerable speculation that the Islanders will be re-signing Kyle Palmieri and Casey Cizikas and adding Zach Parise, who was bought out by Minnesota, but precisely what GM Lou Lamoriello has in mind -- and when he'll act on those plans -- still isn't clear. That's mostly because there's no GM in the league who can restrict the flow of information to outsiders as effectively as Lamoriello.
• Tampa Bay has joined the Penguins as the only teams in this century to win back-to-back Stanley Cups, and have been pretty impressive in doing it. (Whether they circumvented the salary-cap ceiling during the past season, a charge that a league investigation deemed to be unfounded, is a separate issue.) The Lightning is about to share something else with the Penguins, too: An appreciation for just how draining it can be to make consecutive trips to the Cup final, The Penguins did it in 2008 and 2009, and it caught up with them against Montreal in 2010. Same thing against Washington in 2018, after the Penguins' championship runs in 2016 and 2017. Tampa Bay has done a terrific job of drafting, developing and attracting exceptional talents, but fatigue still might be enough to sabotage its bid for a third Cup.
• Alex Ovechkin will turn 36 on Sept. 17, which means it would be entirely appropriate for him to begin a farewell tour of the NHL this fall. Instead, he'll be starting on a five-year contract that carries a $9.5 million cap hit, which should keep him among the league's highest-paid players well after he moves onto the far side of 40. Ovechkin, who has 730 career goals, has made no secret of his desire to surpass Wayne Gretzky's league-record total of 894, which would require him to average 33 per season over the life of his new deal.
• San Jose forward Evander Kane has been nearly as controversial as he is talented, but the latest twist in his career -- his estranged wife has accused him of, among other things, betting on Sharks games and intentionally losing games to he could win wagers -- has to be the most stunning. The NHL has promised a thorough investigation of the allegation, and that the probe will be concluded before training camps open in September.
• It seems pretty unlikely that Seattle will be able to replicate the success Vegas had during its inaugural season -- after all, the Golden Knights made it all the way to the 2018 Cup final against Washington -- but the Kraken's long-term outlook is quite promising. The franchise has received strong support from the public and, more important, Francis has made it a desirable destination for accomplished players, which traditionally is not the case for expansion clubs. It was impressive that Ron Francis was able to lure former Penguins defenseman Jamie Oleksiak, an unrestricted free agent who officially was claimed as the Kraken's selection from Dallas in the expansion draft, but even more so that Francis convinced free-agent goalie Philipp Grubauer to accept a six-year deal. Quite a few teams were interested in adding Grubauer, who played most recently in Colorado, but Seattle is the one that got him.