The Penguins have made a second wave of significant cuts, slashing the roster by 17 players.
Among the 15 farmed out to the Baby Pens? Forwards Corey Andonovski, Raivis Ansons, Drake Caggiula, Jamie Devane, Filip Hallander, Nathan Legare, Alex Nylander, Valtteri Puustinen, Drew O’Connor and Kyle Olson, along with defensemen Xavier Ouellet, Jack St. Ivany and Colin Swoyer and goalies Filip Lindberg and Dustin Tokarski.
First-round pick Owen Pickering and fellow d-man Nolan Collins were returned to their respective junior clubs.
Although there weren’t any huge surprises among the cuts, Caggiula and O’Connor were thought to be in hunt to make the opening night roster. The fact that the latter is still waiver exempt no doubt influenced the decision to send him to the Baby Pens as GM Ron Hextall shuffles the deck in an effort to become cap compliant.
Andonovski, Hallander, Legare, Lindberg, Puustinen and St. Ivany showed at least reasonably well at times, but were obviously caught in a numbers game.
Caggiula, Nylander, Ouellet and Tokarski will need to clear waivers before being assigned.
Twenty-eight players survived the cut, including fringe forwards Josh Archibald, Jonathan Gruden, Ryan Poehling and Radim Zohorna and top prospect Samuel Poulin, who’s had a strong camp and preseason. Defensive hopefuls Ty Smith and Pierre-Olivier Joseph remain with the team as well.
Big Z Oops
After the fact, it’s been confirmed that Zohorna has also been placed on waivers with the intent of assigning him to the Baby Pens. Bringing the total number of players in camp down to 27.
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Zohorna to Flames.
Hey Rick,
Thanks for the Update.
I understand sending Lindberg down. He out-played all of the other goalies in the preseason games, even Jarry. However, this isn't the regular season and unless Jarry stunk out loud, it doesn't make any sense to waste him away on the bench. The only thing about Lindberg that I found problematic was his limited playing time. DeSmith and Tokarski did pretty much stink and both played more than the young Finn.
Final note on Lindberg, I hope that should Jarry have any protracted injury, Lindberg would be given the net for that period of time, or if at any time the team gets a stretch against several weak teams, Lindberg gets a call up to play. At this point DeSmith should only be used on long road trips where the team could not get Lindberg to the rink on time or to relieve Jarry in games where he may get injured or gets chased from the game because he didn't have it that night.
Sending down Zohorna really 9!553d me off. The big Czech has had played well every time I have seen him. I wrote just a couple of days ago that the team needs a culture change, but sending down Big Z just tells me, SOP!!!!!! And I am sick to tears over this. Archibald, Gruden, and Poehling are still around but our Coach has seen fit to risk losing a viable prospect to waivers. Archibald is 29 and none of those 3 are as great of a risk of being claimed off waivers (Gruden is Wiavers exempt) than Zohorna. Furthermore, Zohorna can play Center as well as LW. With the injury history of our Centers and the weakness our team has shown over the last couple seasons at LW, this was a very bad move, I hope it doesn't come back to bite the team in the posterior regions.
On any other team in the league, Devane would have still been around and maybe even at least be in the press box opening night, but he doomed himself to banishment when he KOed an opponent. Same thing with Ouellet, he earned his trip to WBS when he engaged in fisticuffs.
Andonovski and Légaré played real well in preseason games and although Puustenin didn't get much playing time his credentials are well known, however, as I wrote way back when Archibald is the new Simon. He is going to be a Road Block to any RWs coming up to the big club. Anyone who has been really paying attention to the Penguins and how they word their press releases knew that no young RWs were even going to be considered this preseason when they signed Archibald and said he was only signed to be "depth for WBS" - "depth for WBS" is code for a shoe-in for a roster spot. I I said above SOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing ever changes.
Another option would be to have simply sent both Smith and POJ down. They are locked in a battle to see who can throw way a golden opportunity first. The Penguins LHD is a Shakespearean tragedy waiting to happen. The team may have 3 solid NHL level RHD on the roster, unfortunately, at least at this moment, it appears they are cursed with Larry, Moe, Curly Joe, and Shemp on the LHD.