Penguins Prospects Watch Through October

October, the first month of the Pittsburgh Penguins season has mercifully ended and our hometown heroes have not only sunk to the bottom of the Metro Division but the entire Eastern Conference; in fact, they are tied for the 4^th worst record in the NHL. Therefore, my monthly look at what the Penguins Prospects are doing may have a little more meaning than usual. The veterans are failing miserably.

No doubt poor coaching is influencing the current abysmal state the black-and-gold finds itself in right now. However, this team, the oldest team in the league, there are players on the roster that share in the coach’s embarrassing performance – players the Coach chose to put on the roster. (So, it still comes back to Coaching).

Unfortunately, for the Penguins top farm team, the Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) Penguins, most of the Players under contract to the Parent Club (as opposed to those on AHL only contracts with WBS) are almost as old as the fossils populating the team’s NHL roster. It seems AARP cards and AARP discounts are a staple for players on both rosters.

WBS Penguins

On the plus side for our Baby Penguins, unlike the parent club, they have a winning record, 4-3-0. Unfortunately, if you are looking for hope in the WBS Penguins, hope to replace any players in the big-league lineup, don’t. Prime ice-time is going to NHL experienced rejects rather than true prospects.

If not for Goalie Joel Blomqvist, even at the AHL level, our favorite flightless fowl would be sitting at the bottom of the Marianna’s Trench.

Forwards

Vinnie Hinostroza (currently on the NHL roster) and Rem Pitlick lead the Baby Penguins in scoring with 2 Goals (G) and 2 Assists (A) each. Hinostroza picked up his 4 Points (Pnts) in 5 Games Played (GP) before being recalled while Pitlick notched his 4 Pts in 7 GP.

Prospects Alexander Nylander, Valtteri Puustinen, who last season got top 6 minutes have shifted down to middle-6 to bottom-6 minutes. Joona Koppanen, Hinostroza, Pitlick, are the players, under contract to the parent club, that get to start most games and get top minutes. Therefore, it would seem, Mike Sullivan’s desire to only coach veterans and his aversion to actually coaching and teaching young players has become systemic and infiltrated itself all the way down to the farm club, infecting J.D. Forrest.

Neither Nylander, nor Puustinen have the skill set to play bottom 6, but these actual prospects are being put in that position to fail. Rather than employ the more logical practice of playing journeymen veteran has been s and never will be s, in the bottom 6 role, allowing real prospects ice time to grow our Penguins opt to allow their prospects to whither on the vine.

Defense

On Defense, I guess the best thing I can say here is “move along, nothing to see here. Xavier Ouellet is once again leading the way for the Baby Penguins. He has 1 G and 2 A and has +/- of 0. Ty Smith has just as many Pts (3), but his +/- is -2.

Goalies

I shudder to think what WBS’s record would be had Alex Nedeljkovic not gotten hurt and Magnus Hellberg gotten recalled by the archaeologists to steal oxygen on the big-league roster. Blomqvist has had a really strong start to the season. It is early in the season, with few GPs, but Blomqvist Save Percentage (Sv%) was significantly higher prior to last game, in the 0.930 range. Unfortunately, he came in for the 3^rd period in relief of Garret Sparks, last game. Sparks was getting rocked, he gave up 4 Gs on just 22 shots. Therefore, the combination of coming in cold in a game that the defense was probably non-existent (sort of like on the parent club) Blomqvist’s Sv% for the month suffered a little.

The Wheeling Nailers

Forwards

Outside of Blomqvist, Poulin, and Puustenin, the only other prospects not in the Juniors or in Europe I really want to keep an eye on are buried down in the ECHL. I liked what I saw of Isaac Belliveau, Jordan Frasca, Dillion Hamaliuk, and Taylor Gauthier during the Prospects Challenge and have followed Lukáš Švejkovský since his final season of the Juniors.

Wheeling has only played 3 Games so you really can’t read much into what they are doing there but Švejkovský  and have started out strong. Švejkovský has 2 G and 3 A in 5 GP, while Frasca has 4 A. It is just a shame that Sullivan and Forrest have allergies to true prospects and these kids are buried to the point of not even blip on the team’s radar.

I would hate to be a Prospect and get drafted by the Penguins. That would be a death knell. My career would be doomed from the start.

Defense

On Defense, neither Thimo Nickl nor Belliveau have embarrassed themselves and I can’t help but wonder if either or both would help the WBS team with their poor defensive showings right now.

Goalies

In Goal, poor Taylor Gauthier is getting the worst of the team’s disturbing lack of respect for future assets. He is buried as deep as he could be.  The kid probably represents the 3^rd best Goalie under contract to GM Kyle Dubas, only behind Blomqvist and Nedelikovic.

As much as I like Gauthier and Blomqvist, I am glad neither of these players are playing in Pittsburgh Right now. I would hate to have them around that toxic environment. It is better to sacrifice Nedelikovic and Hellberg on the foundering main roster, instead of allowing these two kids to be part of the losing environment of Sullivan’s team.

Juniors and Europe

Forward

I am not sorry for saying this but there is far more potential talent in this organization still in the Juniors or over in Europe, at Forward than currently populating the WBS roster. Therefore, if you are looking for immediate hope, there isn’t much in the organization. However, the future may not be as bleak as the dinosaurs wearing the Penguin logo in the AHL offer.

This most recent NHL Entry Draft was very deep, and although I thought the team could have done better with their top pick, Brayden Yager wasn’t the waste the previous 1^st round pick was. Yager is putting up decent numbers, 9 G and 11 A in 13 GP and a +8. It will be interesting to see if the team will finally move on from the Sullivan mess so that we can see if Yager can fulfill any of his promise.

Kirill Tankov is still playing well. He added 6 more Pts to raise his season total to 12 in 15 GP. I am so glad to see him playing this well after his scary accident. Not sure what has happened, so I will have to check a little more into this, but Tankov only played 5 more games in the month of October.

Other players that have piqued my interest at the start of this season are Cooper Foster, Zam Plante, and Mikhail Ilyin. Foster has 3 G and 8 A in 11 GP for the Ottawa 67s. Zam Plante has 6 G and 7 A in 10 GP. Unfortunately for the Penguins, if Plante really continues to develop this season, according to what I saw on Elite Prospects, he is committed to the University of Minnesota – Duluth next season.

What interests me about Mikael Ilyin is that his 4 G and 7 A in 22 GP were accomplished in the KHL, the Russian equivalent of the NHL. However, like all Russians, will the Penguins be able to bring him over here, even if they want him and he wants to come. There could be a lot of politics involved if he develops.

I would be interested in Kasper Bjorkqvist if he wasn’t so old and hadn’t been burned by the Penguins Coaching staff in the past.

Defense

On Defense, there really isn’t much here. I am still interested in Emil Pieniniemi but he is not a flashy Defenseman, so there are no real statistics to show. Watching him play, he just gets the job done defensively.

The other thing I noticed here is Joseph Masonius. Our Penguins own his rights but I will doubt you will ever see him even in the NHL, let alone in a Penguins’ sweater. The interesting thing here is look where he is playing. This is the first time I noticed anyone playing in a Romanian League. Hockey must be growing – big time.

Goalies

I am disappointed in Filip Lindberg’s October. He started the year off well, registering a 0.931 Sv% in September but he looked more like Tristan Jarry this month; his Sv% plummeted to 0.883.

Sergei Murashov on the other hand is getting back to the form that had me excited last season. The young Russian’s Sv% climbed to 0.926 and he went undefeated in October, giving him a 10-2-0 record for the season.

Odds and Sods

Two years ago, I wanted Ron Hextall to draft Maveric Lamoureaux, A 6’-7”, 198 lbs Right-Handed Defenseman (Something this team needs desperately). Watching some of the games this kid played, he reminded me of a cross betwee a young Ulf Samuelsson (with his penchant for open ice, Neutral Zone hits) and a young Zdeno Chara (with his size). Instead, the Manchurian GM chose Owen Pickering.

Near the end of the year, last season, when teams could sign College and European Free Agents, I wanted the team to ink Jake Livingstone and Valtteri Pulli.

All 3 of these Defensemen would at least give the team an opportunity to keep treading water. Instead our Penguins are laden with millstones dragging them to the bottom of the sea.

As for the player the team opted for, instead of my suggestions; Pickering is currently tied for 129^th in scoring in the WHL, in terms of Pts per Game (PPG), while his -4 is tied for 412^th in the league for +/-. What makes these numbers even more tragic is that his 129^th and 412^th come out of a field of 523. The tragedy here is that Hextall wasted a 1st round pick on an offensive Defenseman outside of the top 5^th of the league in scoring and in the bottom 5^th of the league in +/-.

The table below compares Pickering to the players I wanted.

With our Penguins sitting at the bottom of the league, maybe I can start dreaming of the team getting a chance to draft Macklin Celebrini or Cole Eiserman. If they keep playing this way, I may add them to next month’s installment of prospects watch.