Pittsburgh Penguins Rumors: Oilers expected to pursue Deryk Engelland

Even though the Stanley Cup playoffs have yet to conclude and we have yet to crown a champion, for teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins, eyes have been on the offseason for quite some time now.

Without a general manager in place at the moment, that means other clubs will begin showing interest in current Penguins free agents long before a plan for the Pens is even in place.

One of those guys happens to be defenseman Deryk Engelland as the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson wrote that the Oilers “are almost certainly looking at” the Pittsburgh veteran. (H/T Oilers Nation)

Engelland is 32 and not coming off a very good season.

OilersNation.com broke down the Corsi percentage of the defensemen who have played decent time with Engelland since he first broke into the NHL in 2009:

Player	Minutes	With	Without	Difference
Brooks Orpik	601	45.6	50.0	-4.4
Matt Niskanen	601	51.6	53.4	-1.8
Alex Goligoski	406	47.5	52.5	-5.0
Paul Martin	343	51.3	53.7	-2.4
Kris Letang	290	50.1	54.3	-4.2
Simon Despres	269	51.2	54.0	-2.8
Mark Eaton	148	42.0	46.1	-4.1
Robert Bortuzzo	145	42.1	47.5	-5.4
Ben Lovejoy	132	48.1	50.6	-2.5
Rob Scuderi	110	42.6	49.8	-7.2
Zbynek Michalek	109	46.3	50.3	-4.0
Olli Maatta	92	43.4	51.1	-7.7

That doesn’t paint a pretty picture as everyone has ended up worse while playing with Engelland.

Engelland is a decent depth piece for a team looking for a physical third-pairing type of player, but that shouldn’t be the Pens as allowing Engelland to walk won’t hurt them much with the overall depth of young defensemen currently in the system.

It goes without saying that Engelland would draw some interest around the league this summer but it is quite odd seeing him linked to a team already.

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Pittsburgh Penguins Rumors: Edmonton Oilers Expected To Pursue Deryk Engelland

By Matt Shetler | May 30, 2014