Time To Pump Up The Penguins Prospect Pipeline

This may seem like poor timing to some of our readers who are currently enamored with the current Dr. Jekyll phase of our Pittsburgh Penguins, as they are riding a 7-2-1 stretch as our friend Phil pointed out yesterday. However, the bottom line is our Penguins prospect pool is very shallow and the main roster is laden with museum pieces and artifacts of a bye gone age.

The laws of probability that our favorite flightless fowl favor them making the playoffs. Getting out of the first round is another story. The relics that our GM and Coach have populated our roster with will need a lot of Geritol just to avoid a 1st round sweep, let alone win a series.

Barring a miracle, when the dust settles, sometime this April, we fans will be left with another long summer and our Penguins will be on the links with only a mid – 1^st round draft pick and not much else.

To that end, I thought I would look to see if there were any College or European Free Agents coming out that could bolster our Penguins if not this coming season or relatively soon. (Hopefully, someone in the Penguins organization is looking at the road ahead too, and not in the rear-view mirror).

Valtteri Pulli

The first player that I would love to see our Penguins try to sign is Valtteri Pulli. Our friend Mike and I have discussed him before on these boards in replies to other posts.

Puli skates very well and has strong offensive instincts. <ore importantly, the kid has something this team desperately needs, youth and size. Pulli 6’-6” tall and weighs 209lbs and he isn’t afraid to use it. The only downside I see in him is that he may be too physically aggressive right now. He had to serve a 5-game suspension for a high hard hit at the opposing blue line, trying to keep the play alive.

Unfortunately, the New York Islanders were also after him, last time I looked.

Jake Livingstone

The next player I would love to see Ron Hextall sign is Jake Livingstone. Livingstone is another big strong, tough defenseman. He is plying his trade for Minnesota State University (Mankato) right now.

This kid cleans up his own zone real well. He is a fearless shot blocker and finishes his checks. Blocks the passing lanes, takes away opponents sticks, boxes them out of the paint and seems to always be aware of opponents trying to sneak in the back door and he slams it shut on them. That defensive awareness, that sixth sense on knowing where the danger is coming from would go long, long way on our Penguins, where defensemen often look lost and not knowing who to cover or where to be.

Offensively, Livingston has great vision, he looks the ice over and distributes the puck well to open players, he jumps up on the play to help his forwards, but cycles back if the play fails to develop.

He skates smoothly and can move the puck up out of his zone and through the neutral zone, even into the attacking zone.

I wanted Maveric Lamoureux in the draft, but Hextall opted for Owen Pickering. I am hoping he doesn’t pass on Pulli or Livingstone. Like Pulli, other teams are looking at Livingstone too, the Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks.

Jaxon Nelson

Jaxon Nelson is a big right-handed Center playing for the University of Minnesota. On a team whose youngest Center on their big-league roster is 34 (Nick Bonino), getting good young Centers should be paramount.

I am not as high on Nelson as I am on Livingston and Pulli, but I do like what I have seen of this young pivot. He goes to the blue paint and creates havoc with his size (6’-4”, 220lbs). Perhaps he will turn out to be as ineffective as Jordan Frasca has been in his first pro season (if you recall I was high on Frasca for his physicality too). But I would love to see a big guy like this on our Pens Power Play (PP). His size should tie up at least one opposing defender, maybe two while the black-and-gold is on the PP, giving more room for Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to work with 9 Maybe eke out an extra season for both.

Victor Ostman

I couldn’t find any video of Victor Ostman, but as inconsistent as Tristan Jarry has been and the fact that our starting Goalie is an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA) this summer, add to that Casey DeSmith has had his worse season, stockpiling Goalies should be something Hextall considers. As a former Goalie, I can tell we are a strange bunch and hard to get a good feel for. When we are on, we can be unbeatable. When we aren’t on….well you get what we are getting in the ‘burgh this season, headaches and losses.

I really liked Filip Gustavsson and said that he would eventually be better than Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray, on these boards. Jim Rutherford, in his infinite folly chose to trade Gustavsson, Ian Cole, and Ryan Reeves, for a spare part forward and PP specialist, Derrick Brassard. If he didn’t waste assets like he did, we may not be having this conversation. Unfortunately, here we are.

Don’t mistake Ostman’s inclusion on this list as any dissatisfaction, on my part, with our Penguins Goaltending prospects, I like to love what I have seen of Joel Blomqvist, Taylor Gauthier, and Filip Lindberg, or even statistically Sergei Murashov but nothing is for sure. Therefore, it never hurts to have a plan C, D, and E. Afterall, like in sales, it is a numbers game. The more Goalies, the more prospects you have the greater the chance of finding a gem. And if they all pan out, you have tradable assets to shore up your weaknesses or trade for future assets.

Odds and Sods

Tonight, our Penguins take on the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs will be playing the back end of a back-to-back set. They lost last night to the Colorado Avalanche 8-4. While our Penguins have been on 7-2-1 hot streak, the Canadiens have been ice cold 2-6-2. My money would be on our hometown team tonight.

Malkin and Jason Zucker are on fire. Malkin has 8 points in the last 5 games and our friend Mike’s favorite Jason Zucker is tearing it up with 5 Goals over that same stretch. When you consider Montreal’s Goalies Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault are having trouble stopping beach balls this season (0.895% and 0.905% Save Percentages respectively) they should be able to stay hot.

The Game is scheduled for a 7:00pm start at PPG Paints Arena.