new coach Dan Muse<\/a> will pick for his roster, and which 20 will be on the ice at Madison Square Garden for Tuesday\u2019s season opener.<\/p>\nIt all remains a bit of a mystery, even though only a few decisions need to be made.<\/p>\n
The final preseason game, Friday against the Buffalo Sabres, is typically a dress rehearsal for the start of the season. Tristan Jarry is getting the start in net, which sounds customary enough. I would imagine he\u2019s the odds-on favorite to get the start in New York next week, though I don\u2019t say that with any great sense of confidence. When asked about his goaltending situation, Muse said that Sergei Murashov is going to play the final minutes of the final exhibition game. That caught everyone a little off guard.<\/p>\n
President\/general manager Kyle Dubas essentially said on the day training camp opened that the Penguins are going to go with their two best goaltenders when the season begins. Murashov has clearly been the Penguins\u2019 best goaltender in camp.<\/p>\n
Does this mean the Penguins will keep Murashov in the NHL? No, not necessarily. I still think the most likely scenario sees Murashov heading to AHL Wilkes-Barre, while Jarry and Art\u016brs \u0160ilovs start the season in the NHL. But that\u2019s the thing about this particular training camp, and this moment in time for the Penguins: The roster doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s set in stone. Muse and Dubas don\u2019t feel nearly as compelled to defer to veterans the way previous coach Mike Sullivan often did, perhaps because most of the veterans aren\u2019t what they once were. Meanwhile, the quality of young players \u2014 such as Murashov \u2014 is obviously greater than before.<\/p>\n
So, what should we expect? No one knows. We watch the final preseason game, and we wait.<\/p>\n
Murashov isn\u2019t the only young player under the microscope in the preseason finale. I expect to see Harrison Brunicke in the lineup \u2014 why would he still be here if he\u2019s not going to play, right? \u2014 and people throughout the organization have told me the Penguins are tinkering with the idea of keeping him around a bit longer. Will they or won\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
On one level, it\u2019s easy to assume that certain decisions have already been made. Kris Letang, for instance, has been skating daily with Caleb Jones for a while now. This would historically mean that Jones is going to start the season on Letang\u2019s pairing. Most people would say that Jones wasn\u2019t among the Penguins\u2019 six best defensemen during camp. But why would he be skating with Letang every day if he isn\u2019t going to play with him?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just one confusing aspect of the crowded blue line.<\/p>\n
We know Erik Karlsson and Letang are going to be on the ice in New York. At this point, I\u2019d be surprised if Matt Dumba isn\u2019t. He\u2019s been a very strong performer in camp.<\/p>\n
So, that leaves three spots for opening night in New York. Parker Wotherspoon has been skating with Karlsson regularly, much like Jones with Letang. Does that mean Wotherspoon and Jones are both in?<\/p>\n
If so, only one spot remains between Brunicke, Owen Pickering, Connor Clifton, Ryan Shea and, ahem, Ryan Graves.<\/p>\n
This is interesting because I believe \u2014 and I\u2019m not alone \u2014 that Shea, Clifton and, without question, Brunicke have been among the Penguins\u2019 best six defensemen in camp. We are to the point where Graves touching the ice on opening night is almost unimaginable. He\u2019s performed poorly in preseason games, and his time in Pittsburgh has been a disaster. But even if we rule him out, there are still so many questions.<\/p>\n
Pickering hasn\u2019t had a bad camp, but I can\u2019t say he\u2019s had a great one. He\u2019s been decidedly OK. You\u2019d like to see a bit more at this point from the 2022 first-round pick. However, he handled himself pretty well in a brief NHL stint last season. We talk so much about Brunicke that we sometimes leave Pickering out of the equation. His situation is interesting.<\/p>\n
The unpredictability doesn\u2019t end there. The situation at forward has plenty of it, too.<\/p>\n
Ben Kindel is still on the roster. Though I don\u2019t expect him to be with the Penguins all season, it would not shock me if he stays for a nine-game trial run. The Penguins are that high on him, and he\u2019s been that good.<\/p>\n
Youth is on the way. Even if Tristan Broz and Avery Hayes begin the season in Wilkes-Barre, they probably won\u2019t end the season there.<\/p>\n
This is an oddly exciting time for the Penguins, who might not be very good but who are in transition for the first time in a very long time. Brunicke, Murashov and Kindel are the epicenter of that excitement. Maybe they will stick around in the NHL this season, maybe they won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
One way or another, it\u2019s so clear that those players are close to being ready and to being part of a new foundation for the Penguins. That\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n
Everyone gets another glimpse of them on Friday against Buffalo. Maybe it will be the last glimpse for a while.<\/p>\n
Or maybe not.<\/p>\n
Notes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Injured forwards Rutger McGroaty and Kevin Hayes skated on Friday. This marked McGroarty\u2019s first time on the ice since the beginning of training camp.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Evgeni Malkin is now listed at 6 feet, 5 inches on the team\u2019s official roster. The reason is simple: Malkin was 6-3 when he arrived in Pittsburgh two decades ago, but it was long believed that he had grown a bit taller. Still, the Penguins never bothered to change his measurements over the years, which is pretty common among NHL teams. Dubas is the meticulous type and wanted official measurements on the team\u2019s roster this season. Malkin measured in at 6-5 at the beginning of camp.<\/p>\n
(Photo of Sergei Murashov: Justin Berl \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014 Say this for the Pittsburgh Penguins: They\u2019re never boring. While expected to finish near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,4785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-187883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}