The Penguins Begin Panning For Gold This Weekend

Breakout your picks and shovels, it is time to go prospecting for a nugget or two of gold. The puck drops tomorrow at 3:30pm and the Penguins’ Prospects will take on the Boston Bruins’ prospects in the Prospects’ Challenge.

Penguins’ Prospect Schedule

Friday, September 7 – 3:30 PM – Game vs. Boston

Saturday, September 8 – 3:30 PM – Game vs. New Jersey

Monday, September 10 – 12:30 PM – Game vs. Buffalo

There is at least one good sign going into this weekend’s tilt, Jordy Bellerive will play. I didn’t really expect it. I would have thought he would take the extra days off and wait until training camp before taking some hits.

My excitement over Bellerive’s return is tempered to some degree though. I must confess that I don’t know who actually is eligible to play, but I really was hoping to see Kasper Björkvist, Filip Hållander, and Tobias Lindberg this weekend. In Bjokvist’s case, maybe college players aren’t allowed to compete in the Tournament and for Lindberg, maybe he has been playing too long.

Other points of note; looking down the Penguins’ Prospects’ Roster is that Anthony Angello is listed as a Right Wing (RW). Like Jake Guentzel, Dominik Simon, and Adam Johnson, the 6′-5″ 210lb, right handed Forward came up through the college ranks as a Center (C), but is now being asked to transition to wing. With the depth the Penguins have at C it does make some sense, particularly with the lack of depth the team now has at RW. Once you get past Kessel, Hornqvist, Sprong, and Rust, there really is not much left. Furthermore, I wouldn’t mind seeing a 6′-5″ fourth line RW banging some bodies around, wearing down opposing D’s so Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin can exploit them.

The last thing I looked at was the lack of size on the Penguins’ Defense (D). The tallest D prospects on the roster were only 6′-2″ and there were only three of them; Dane Birks, Wyatt McLeod, and Carter Robertson. I understand Mike Sullivan’s idea of puck moving D but there are puck moving D that are over 6′-2″. Why do we continually only look for smaller players? When lack size, you have to be exponentially better to compensate for lack of reach and mass.

Penguins’ Prospect Roster