NHL Rumors: The Tomas Tatar, Pittsburgh Penguins Speculation

@Flux_cc: UFA forward Tomas Tatar in a Slovak interview when asked if it would be nice to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins and if he’s had talks: “It was, but I don’t want to develop it further. Keep it to myself. I said a couple of times who I was talking with and it always went the other way.”

  • Rob Rossi: Have been hearing since last Sunday that the Penguins are interested in Tatar but he’d take a guaranteed contract from someone as opposed to a PTO from the Penguins.
  • Rob Rossi: The Tatar-Penguins situation is fluid from what was hearing last week and that signing a one-year deal with the Penguins shouldn’t be ruled out. Tatar is looking to get term somewhere.

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@Flux_cc: Tatar on if him wanting some term has been in an issue contract talks with teams this offseason: “The last few days I put some things aside and tried to look at teams where I would feel the best and it would make the most sense. Maybe that’s why it moved in the right direction.”

Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now: Elliotte Friedman did speculate that the Pittsburgh Penguins could be interested in unrestricted free agent forward Tomas Tatar because they could use a scoring winger like Tatar.

Some of the speculation was tied to Jake Guentzel’s offseason injury and being re-evaluated in 12 weeks. GM Kyle Dubas seemed optimistic that he’d be ready late October/early November, and not miss too much time.

Without Guentzel going on the LTIR or expecting to be out for months of the season, they can’t really sign anyone else and be cap compliant. After the Erik Karlsson trade, they are under the cap but not by much.

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Dubas has also said that he thinks they’ll enter camp with their current group, with the potential to add some more on PTOs. He expects that route over doing anything bigger.