The Penguins have no regrets about trying to lure center Matt Cullen back for another season.
But they might be second-guessing the decision to not give him a deadline for making up his mind.
Despite being an unrestricted free agent for two days, Cullen still hasn't made it known whether he will spend 2016-17 with the Penguins or another club.
If he moves on, Minnesota appears to be his most likely destination, although Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford said Saturday he doesn't know how many teams Cullen is considering.
The Penguins have limited salary-cap space with which to work _ Rutherford has pegged it at roughly $1 million _ but apparently did not simply make a firm, take-it-or-leave-it contract proposal to Cullen.
Rutherford suggested there has been some actual negotiating, give-and-take on contract details, with Cullen's agent, Pat Morris, since Cullen opted against retiring.
"There have been conversations," he said. "We're in a cap crunch here, and we've laid out how far we can go."
Another of the Penguins' unrestricted free agents, defenseman Justin Schultz, also remains unsigned. While Rutherford hasn't ruled out bringing him back if the price is acceptable, the Penguins haven't been aggressively pursuing Schultz.
Cullen, signed as a free agent last summer, was effective on the fourth line, killing penalties and handling faceoffs throughout the regular season and playoffs, doing some of his best work when the stakes were highest.
He will be 40 Nov. 2, but Penguins officials consistently have said that they are not concerned with his age.
"He's got a lot of gas left in the tank," assistant GM Bill Guerin said Saturday.
Enough that bringing Cullen back for his 19th NHL season is the Penguins' clear preference. They do, however, have a backup plan.
"Hopefully, he comes back," Rutherford said. "But as we've said all along, if he doesn't, we've got Oskar Sundqvist, who we feel is ready to go."
Sundqvist, 22, was a third-round draft choice in 2012. He has appeared in as many regular-season games in the NHL (18) as Cullen has spent winters there, so his transition to steady work at this level might have more than a few bumps.
The Penguins, though, seem willing to accept that, if it becomes necessary.
"It'd be a young guy learning the league, but he played in a men's league in Sweden for a couple of years," Rutherford said.
"He's a guy who has a lot of experience. There'd be a little bit of a learning curve there, but there's also a huge upside to Oskar."
While Cullen's future has gotten most of the attention in the past few days, teams were allowed to begin contract talks Friday with players whose deals expire next summer.
Goalie Matt Murray, who earned 15 of the Penguins' 16 victories during their drive to the Stanley Cup, is in that group, but Rutherford said he has no immediate plans to open negotiations with anyone.
"We'll start to do our homework on what direction we want to go on some of these guys, but we're not going to get into that for at least a couple of months, if we decide to," he said.
Fact is, with the draft, most of free agency and their annual development camp behind them, the Penguins plan to shift their hockey operations into something akin to suspended animation in the near future.
"We'll take a break for about a month," Rutherford said. "That's going to be the key, right now, for all of us.
"This has been a long, stressful run. I think we all need a little time to decompress."
