And this isn’t the usual platform or time/place for big picture thoughts, but for cryin’ out loud, this team is going to have to find a third LD just for the sake of being functional. Dumba on the left side and a 19-year old Brunicke isn’t going to be the answer. (Neither is Connor Clifton). We’ll see how and when that might get rectified.
Asked and answered, come on back to the NHL Owen Pickering!
The Penguins have had a unique problem in that they don’t have enough left shot defenders. Almost always the opposite is true for NHL teams. Caleb Jones suffering a lower body injury last week meant the team has attempted to rotate through Matt Dumba, Harrison Brunicke and Connor Clifton filling the two spots on the third pair in the past few games. All are right shots. It hasn’t been a smooth process to watch unfold, as can be seen from the raw emotion of the recap. The Pens badly needed the added structure that comes with a left shot playing on the left side and a right hander on the right side.
That’s where Pickering will come in to have a chance and steady the third pair. Pickering did spend quite a bit of the preseason with Brunicke on an all-rookie pair, and performed well in Wilkes-Barre scoring four points in seven games on their first pair defense.
Huge opportunity for Pickering to show his stuff and start establishing himself in the NHL in his draft+4 season, a time where it would be wonderful for his future career prospects that he gets it in gear and starts moving up the ranks. It’s also interesting to a degree that it’s Pickering, and not veteran Ryan Graves, who is coming up to Pittsburgh at this time. Barring injury, it might be a long, long time (if ever) before Graves is back in a Penguin jersey.