Mike Sullivan said the Penguins wanted to build up their minor league team and depth back in May, and you really have to give it to the Penguins (and their ownership) for making a significant investment to make that happen. It’s not cheap or easy to build up some quality depth, but the Pens have done that to the extreme in the opening days of free agency.
In addition to the standard additions that Pittsburgh needed to make to improve their bottom-six (think the multi-year deals and significant money to Lars Eller and Noel Acciari), Kyle Dubas has had free reign to make a lot of moves to add — at somewhat significant expense — some “AAAA” level players to help the team.