There isn't a single player who is under contract with the Penguins for a greater length of time than Ryan Graves.
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound defenseman signed a six-year, $27 million ($4.5 million annual average value) contract with the Penguins on the first day of free agency. He'll become a staple next to Kris Letang and Jeff Petry on the left side of the blue line.
"Ryan, obviously, he brings a lot of size to the group," Kyle Dubas said after inking Graves, "but more importantly, he’s been very effective playing against very tough competition in New Jersey and going back to Colorado. We feel that’ll help."
Marcus Pettersson has blossomed into an effective two-way defenseman for the Penguins, but Brian Dumoulin's decline in recent seasons created a problem that became impossible to dance around.
Once the Penguins' defensive backbone, Dumoulin struggled big-time during the 2022-23 season. He played just over 1,400 minutes at 5-on-5, in which time the Penguins were outscored, 70-52, and barely kept their heads above water in expected goals at 50.6%, per Evolving-Hockey.
Things weren't any better on the penalty-kill, where he played nearly 100 more minutes than any other Penguins defender. The rate at which opposing power plays scored, shot, and attempted shots was higher with Dumoulin out there than all of the regulars.
He was thrown to the wolves, consistently put in difficult defensive situations that he could no longer handle. His performance was no longer where it needed to be in order to play top-pairing minutes next to Letang or be relied on as the No. 1 on the penalty-kill.
The Penguins will look to Graves, 28, to take on a similar workload. At an insignificantly higher cap hit than the $4.1 million Dumoulin previously counted against the books, he should be a legitimate upgrade.
Dating all the way back to his days in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Graves has been tasked with providing a steady defensive presence against the opposition's best players. He was considered a long-term project when selected by the Rangers with pick No. 110 in the 2013 NHL Draft, but over time, he improved his skating and learned how to utilize his big frame to eventually debut with the Avalanche in 2018-19.
Through his first three seasons in the NHL, Graves played 149 games with the Avalanche, posting a dazzling 61.3% share of on-ice goals at 5-on-5. When he was out on the ice at full-strength, opponents scored just 2.02 goals per hour and generated 2.11 expected goals per hour. Both figures pointed to him being a very strong defensive presence.
After the conclusion of the 2020-21 season, Graves was acquired by the Devils for left winger Mikhail Maltsev and a second-round pick in 2021 that became defenseman Sean Behrens. He played in 153 games over the next two seasons, but didn't enjoy quite as much success, as he had a much more pedestrian 51.4% share of on-ice goals at 5-on-5 with a higher on-ice goals-against rate (2.84) and expected goals-against rate (2.62) than he had with the Avalanche.
Part of the reason for the rise in those defensive categories can be explained by being deployed as the Devils' shutdown defender. Although he tended to receive second-pairing minutes, he was frequently matched up against top players with a hefty dosage of defensive-zone starts.
Of the 1,326 minutes Graves played at 5-on-5 last season, 840 of them were spent alongside former Penguin John Marino. Lindy Ruff put them in tough matchups, allowing Dougie Hamilton and Damon Severson to feast offensively against lower levels of competition.
The Graves-Marino pairing was very strong in their own end, ceding just 1.93 goals against per hour and 2.4 expected goals against per hour. However, in the 486 minutes Graves played without Marino at full-strength, the Devils performed much worse defensively: 2.96 goals against per hour and 2.98 expected goals against per hour.
And while it was a smaller sample at 243 minutes, Marino saw better defensive results in shots against and expected goals against when he wasn't playing with Graves. This is why the statistical models that aim to isolate a player's individual impact weren't very fond of Graves' defensive performance in 2022-23, ranking his even-strength defense in the 26th percentile among NHL defensemen.
I don't believe he's actually near replacement-level in his own end, but this output -- and the fact Marino continued to excel defensively without him -- shouldn't be ignored entirely. With a demonstrated history of well above-average defensive impacts in Colorado, Graves is likely to return to that level in some capacity, he just shouldn't be expected to be an elite, shutdown defender.
Graves' biggest value is that, while he might not be prime Nicklas Lidstrom out there against top competition, he's not going to get crushed against top competition, either.
Sure, it'd be great to have someone who excels against top competition rather than just getting by most of the time, but those players cost a heck of a lot more than what Graves will count against the salary cap each season. When the salary cap increases by several million within the next few years, his contract likely will be viewed as great value for the Penguins.
And hey, don't discount the impact of going from getting crushed in high-leverage situations (Dumoulin) to just getting by (Graves).
So long as Graves doesn't have to be the one who the breakout is typically worked through -- which shouldn't be an issue next to either Letang or Petry -- he'll be just fine with the Penguins. His size and strength are welcome additions to the blue line and, while he's a defense-first defenseman, he'll occasionally get involved off the rush as a trailer to complement his defensive work with a dash of offense.
There are, indeed, better defensive defensemen than Graves out there. But unless they were willing to trade away futures assets for a one-year rental, like Noah Hanifin, who would have to be extended at a significant raise a year from now, Dubas and the Penguins didn't have many appealing choices to fill the hole left behind by Dumoulin.
They managed to get one of the best options in free agency and didn't have to make a ridiculous annual overpayment to do it.
