Although cap space was the real return for the Penguins when they shipped John Marino to the Devils last offseason, Ty Smith was the centerpiece of what New Jersey sent back. He subsequently spent the vast majority of this past season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, appearing in only nine games up in the NHL.
Unless the soon-to-be general manager intends to bring back Brian Dumoulin, the Penguins will likely need to sign or acquire a top-four, left-handed defenseman this offseason to play alongside either of Kris Letang or Jeff Petry. That leaves them in an interesting situation as far as what to do with Smith, who turned 23 in March, because it doesn't seem plausible that they'd go into the season with him and P.O Joseph down the left side of the blue line.
Aside from not wanting to usher either Smith or Joseph into a second-pairing role right out of the gates (or at all), leaving those two as the only other left-handed defensemen not named Marcus Pettersson would put the penalty-kill in a very difficult position. Smith shouldn't see the penalty-kill at all because of his small frame and defensive deficiencies, and Joseph should only be used there as a last resort due to his own lack of weight and defensive deficiencies.
Even ignoring the penalty-kill, the team defense, in general, took a big step back this past season. There's a need for a somewhat defensive-minded defenseman in the top four, kind of like Dumoulin from seasons ago. Neither Smith nor Joseph are that guy.
If the Penguins' goal is to re-establish themselves as a contender in the Eastern Conference (which it most certainly is), they're going to have to do some shopping via trade in addition to filling out the remainder of the roster via free agency. With a rather barren prospect pool, Smith or Joseph could serve as a nice sweetener in the right deal.
The question then becomes: Which one should they keep if that's the route they take?
The first thing to consider here is both players' contracts. Smith is a pending restricted free agent and, according to Evolving-Hockey's contract projections, is projected to have a $1.7 million cap hit on a one-year contract and a $2.2 million cap hit on a two-year contract. That might seem silly since Smith barely played in the NHL this past season, but it's important to note that the projections are based off historical contract data and boxscore statistics, not analytical data such as on-ice expected goals or isolated impact models. The projections also look beyond the most recent season, so Smith's first two seasons with the Devils are pulling some weight for him here.
Evolving-Hockey has a great track record with their contract projections. They're almost always in the right ballpark. So, if Smith checks in with a cap hit of say, $1.5 million, it would still be considerably more than the $825,000 Joseph will count against the cap in the final year of his deal next season.
The discrepancy in price alone is enough to heavily consider hanging onto Joseph instead of Smith.
Shifting focus to their on-ice performance, I get the sense that Smith's ceiling might be the kind of season that Joseph just had. I'm sure that'll sound ludicrous to some because Smith posted 23 points in 48 games as a 20-year-old rookie with the Devils, which is more points than Joseph had in 75 games this past season (21). It's not that simple, though.
During Smith's rookie season, he produced 1.06 points per hour during 5-on-5 action playing in an extremely sheltered role. Joseph spent most of this past season playing on the third pairing, but still had his fair share of action with Letang and Petry against a higher level of competition. He managed to produce 1.04 points per hour at 5-on-5 and played well over 300 more minutes than Smith did as a rookie.
It's a small sample, but three of Smith's four points with the Penguins were on the power play. He put up just one point (a goal) in 130 full-strength minutes for a rate of 0.46 points per hour. Going forward, Smith won't see any action on the power play unless Letang or Petry are injured. Heck, Smith only even saw NHL action in 2022-23 for that exact reason.
That said, there's a lot more to consider about a defenseman's performance than simply looking at production rates. I'd argue it's much more important how they're impacting the quality of looks at both ends of the ice. That's where Joseph starts to separate himself.
The thing about Smith's first two seasons with the Devils in which he was, indeed, productive on the scoresheet is that he was a play-driving black hole. He's a smooth skater and is capable of making clean passes both in-zone and breaking the puck out, but those abilities didn't culminate to an overly strong offensive impact. His contributions toward his team's ability to create quality chances was OK during his rookie season, ranking in the 64th percentile of NHL defensemen, per JFresh Hockey, but that figure tanked to the 25th percentile in his second season when he had a bit larger role and played many more minutes.
The big issue is that his defensive impact was atrocious. He graded out in the ninth percentile as a rookie and the fourth percentile as a sophomore. Decent raw point totals, uninspiring offensive impacts and abominable defensive impacts? Sure sounds like left-handed Tyson Barrie lite to me. And the Penguins really don't need that at this stage.
It's worth mentioning that Smith primarily played with Dumoulin when he was up in the NHL with the Penguins and managed to pull decent results out of him, unlike any other defender on the team. Still, it was a small sample that featured several games against not-so-great opponents. He was fine to stop the bleeding while the injury bug hit, but it didn't seem sustainable.
Joseph wasn't perfect in 2022-23. His defensive impact (10th percentile) was nearly as poor as Smith's was his rookie season, but he made up for all of it and then some with a 90th percentile offensive impact. When he was out on the ice at 5-on-5, the Penguins scored 3.06 goals per hour (first among team defensemen) and generated 3.36 expected goals per hour (third among team defensemen, trailing Pettersson and Letang).
Although Smith might be a better puck-handler and smoother skater, Joseph was able to push the play offensively thanks to a longer and more explosive stride that allowed him to escape and separate from forechecking pressure in the defensive zone before breaking the puck out with a stretch pass or by skating it all the way out himself. He also wasn't afraid to carry the puck across the offensive blue line, which is something that Smith doesn't do all that often.
Joseph's lack of weight is always going to hold him back defensively. He does, in my eyes, at least, have a better shot at mitigating some of that with his height and long reach. Smith doesn't have that going for him and, outside of points, hasn't been able to drive offense to a degree that makes up for his defensive issues.
Barring a significant bump in Smith's development, it seems like the best-case scenario for him would be immensely strong offensive impacts with rather porous defensive impacts playing on the third pairing. Joseph just did that.
With Joseph also possessing a heavier shot, I struggle to rationalize prioritizing Smith over him. If one's going to be included in a trade, Smith would be the sensible choice for a number of reasons.
