Penguins and former Penguins on the World’s Stage at the IIHF Championship’s

Not all our Pittsburgh Penguins’ Players and former players are enjoying the fruits of frustration from their failure to make the playoffs this year. Several of our stalwart skaters earned themselves a chance to play in the International Ice – Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships and compete for their home country in that tournament. So, I thought I would catch us up on their exploits through the preliminary round.

Now, don’t get too excited, this tournament is very watered down. The Russian team isn’t taking part in it and there few NHL calibre players that are participating in this tournament are pretty much centered in only a handful of teams.

Name	GP	G	A	Pts	P/M
Bonino, Nick	7	3	1	4	3
Joseph, Pierre-Olivier	7	1	0	1	4
Nylander, Alexander	7	0	2	2	2
O’Connor, Drew	7	3	2	5	5

Drew O’Connor leads all current Penguins Players in scoring and +/- in this tournament with 3 Goals (G), 5 Points (Pts) and a +5. Nick Bonino a soon to be Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA) is 2nd 3 G and 4 Pts. Pierre Olivier – Joseph is second among Penguins’ skaters with a +4.

Name	GP	G	A	Pts	P/M
Bengtsson, Lukas	7	0	1	1	4
Drozg, Jan	7	3	0	0	-4
Kahun, Dominik	7	1	2	3	5
Kapanen, Kasperi	7	3	2	5	8
Maatta, Olli	7	0	5	5	1
Tiffels, Frederik	7	1	3	4	0
Zohorna, Radim	2	0	0	0	0

Former Penguins’ Right Winger (RW) and oft resident of Mike Sullivan’s doghouse of healthy scratches, Kasperi Kapanen leads among former Penguins in scoring with 3 G and 5 Pts just like current Penguin Drew O’Connor, but Kapanen has a better +/- at +8. Former Penguins property Dominik Kahun, who Sullivan and Jim Rutherford thought so highly of that they traded him to Buffalo for Dominik Simon and Evan Rodrigues has 3 points and is tied with O’Connor at a +5. Frederick TIffels, another former Penguin property who stood in such high regard as to ply his trade for the Wheeling Nailers, has the same number of Pts as Bonino, 4 Jan Drozg who impressed the Penguins brain trust so much that they didn’t offer him a contract last season for any level of play, has the same number of G, as both O’Connor and Bonino. And Lukas Bengtsson, one of our team’s earliest prospect defections back to Europe, thanks to our Penguins wonderful development program has nearly the same stats as our Penguins top Rookie from this past season, Joseph. Bengtsson has 1 point and is a +4. The only separation is that Jospeh’s 1 Pnt  is a G and Bengtsson’s is an Assist (A). Oh, and Jospeh plays on what should have been a stronger Canadian team than the Swedish national team, but at this point that may not be true.

Name	GP	W	Sv%	GAA	SO
DeSmith, Casey	4	4	94.23	1.49	1
Larmi, Emil	5	3	92.24	1.78	0

In Goal, Casey DeSmith has feasted on the lack of talent in the tournament and has built himself some healthy statistics, a .9432 Save Percentage (Sv%) and Goals Against Average (GAA) of 1.49, en route to 4 wins (W) compared to 1 (L). Compare that to another Penguins defector, Emil Larmi, who is helping backstop Finland and who has a Sv% of 0.9224 and GAA of 1.78.

Even if DeSmith’s play is a result of playing against inferior talent, it may boost his confidence.

If players the team let go are playing just as well as players the team kept, was it just a question that the Penguins were just overloaded with talent or that these players may not be all that we would wat them to be?

We will see as the tournament begins the quarter final round tomorrow.