Pittsburgh makes trade, former defenseman rejoins team
Pierre-Olivier Joseph has returned to the Penguins via a trade. The defenseman, who was with the team from 2019-24, leaving this summer as a free agent, is back in Pittsburgh following a trade with the St. Louis Blues.
HE'S BAAACK ‼️
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 19, 2024
The Penguins have acquired defenseman P.O Joseph from the St. Louis Blues for future considerations. pic.twitter.com/XXjzyINdcF
The Penguins could use a defender with Marcus Pettersson injured. The left side of their lineup consists of a 20-year old rookie in Owen Pickering, Matt Grzelcyk and Ryan Graves, with Ryan Shea also in the lineup currently and veteran minor leaguer Nate Clurman as depth.
Joseph addresses some depth and gives the team a familiar face with the system and personnel. The price as far as acquistion cost can’t be beat, the unlisted “future considerations” aren’t set in stone — and mostly a no-cost mechanism to steer Joseph back to a team in Pittsburgh that wanted him and a nice move by St. Louis to move on for a player who wasn’t fitting in with them, instead of waiving him and letting potentially a different team higher up in the waiver order claim him.
It may be a question of what Joseph’s current form and confidence is, because his stint in St. Louis was not the best, his expected goals percentage of 43.3% was worst among defensemen on the Blues. Despite a limited role and a short amount of ice time of 13:06 per game in 23 contests, Joseph was on the ice for 17 5v5 goals against, a rate of 3.69 per 60 that also ranked lowest on the team. The Blues addressed their own defensive issues by trading for veteran defender Cam Fowler recently, lessening their need and role for Joseph to play. Instead of outright waiving him, they instead decided to hand him back over to the team that knows and likes him.
The Pens will hope Joseph can pick it up and wash that bad experience off of him in his second stint in Pittsburgh. Joseph is only signed this season at a $950,000 cap hit and per Puck Pedia will be a restricted free agent if he is qualified. Pittsburgh opted to not qualify the arbitration eligible defender last summer, paving way for him to become an unrestricted free agent and sign with St. Louis. It only took a couple of months for a reunion.
