With the Pittsburgh Penguins entering the offseason for a third consecutive year without a playoff appearance, TribLive will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 55 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until future seasons — with the organization.

Starting with Noel Acciari and going on through to Philip Tomasino (regrettably, there is no Z on the payroll), every player will be profiled in alphabetical order.

This series is scheduled to be published Mondays through Saturdays leading up until June 23, four days before the start of the NHL Draft. In the event of a transaction, that schedule will be altered as necessary.

(Note: All contract information courtesy of Puckpedia.)

Emil Bemstrom

Position: Center

Shoots: Right

Age: 25

Height: 6-foot

Weight: 190 pounds

2024-25 NHL statistics: 14 games, one point (zero goals, one assist), 8:20 of average ice time per contest

2024-25 AHL statistics: 48 games, 48 points (23 goals, 25 assists)

Contract: Signed to a one-year contract with a salary cap hit of $775,000. Pending restricted free agent this upcoming offseason. (Bemstrom is eligible for salary arbitration.)

Acquired: Trade, Feb. 22, 2024

This season: There was plenty of opportunity to claim a spot on the Penguins NHL roster entering the preseason, especially among the forward ranks. And Emil Bemstrom did relatively little to make a case that he deserved one of those jobs.

While the likes of forwards such as Rutger McGroarty and Jesse Puljujarvi were productive in exhibition games, Bemstrom failed to generate any offense on six shots in three preseason games and was waived Oct. 4.

After clearing, he was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton the next day and almost immediately began composing a wonderful season at the American Hockey League level. In his first 17 games of the season, he posted 19 points (six goals, 13 assists) while being deployed as a left winger almost exclusively.

As younger teammates such as McGroarty and others got acclimated to the professional game, Bemstrom was the AHL Penguins’ most consistent performer throughout the first half of the season and was rewarded for providing that stability by being selected to the AHL’s All-Star Classic.

On Feb. 1, the Pittsburgh Penguins began the process of trading away parts of the NHL roster when they sent forward Drew O’Connor and defenseman Marcus Pettersson to the Vancouver Canucks. Four days later, Bemstrom was recalled to Pittsburgh.

But much like the preseason, Bemstrom did not offer much in the final months of the regular season to suggest he has a place on the NHL roster

At the same time, it wouldn’t be accurate to say he was put in an optimal station during the final two-plus months of the season. Over that span, he largely skated on the NHL club’s bottom two lines while being shuffled between Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on eight different occasions. He even went through waivers again March 31.

Bemstrom was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for good April 12, but any hopes he would lead that team to postseason success were extinguished April 17 when it was announced he would undergo season-ending surgery for an undisclosed ailment.

The future: Bemstrom is pretty much in the same exact place he was a year ago when he was a pending restricted free agent. The only difference is the Penguins have a better understanding of what he can offer compared to last spring when they were still trying to figure out what they acquired in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets in February of 2024.

Things could go one of two ways with Bemstrom this summer.

The team could simply not extend a qualifying offer and allow him to walk as an unrestricted free agent.

Or management could view him as being a productive contributor to the AHL club while serving as a steward of sorts in guiding younger teammates with viable NHL futures and try to re-sign him to a similar contract (assuming he wants to stay). A lot of the success Wilkes-Barre/Scranton enjoyed this season was due to Bemstrom’s strong performance.

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Either way, it’s become obvious over parts of two seasons that Bemstrom’s hopes for being a steady NHLer won’t materialize with the Penguins.

Including his time with the Blue Jackets organization, Bemstrom has been a strong AHLer, producing 95 points (49 goals, 46 assists) in 81 career games at that level.

But for whatever reason, like many before him, his AHL success hasn’t carried over to the NHL.