{"id":182237,"date":"2025-10-01T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/182237\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T09:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:54:07","slug":"metro-notes-brunicke-murashov-ginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/182237\/","title":{"rendered":"Metro Notes: Brunicke, Murashov, Ginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the emerging storylines coming out of Pittsburgh Penguins training camp has been the exceptional preseason performance of young defenseman Harrison Brunicke<\/a>. The 19-year-old defenseman has drawn rave reviews for his play both in training camp and in preseason games, and that praise has come both from the media as well as people within the Penguins organization. The Athletic\u2019s Josh Yohe reported today<\/a> that \u201cthere is an appetite around the organization\u201d for the Penguins to keep Brunicke on their season-opening NHL roster. Yohe also commented that \u201csome people in the organization\u201d are telling Yohe that Brunicke is \u201calready the Penguins\u2019 best defenseman.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s high praise considering the Penguins blueline currently features three-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson<\/a> and veteran Kris Letang<\/a>, who was among the NHL\u2019s top blueliners for more than a decade. Brunicke is a 6\u20193, 202-pound defenseman who was a second-round pick in 2024 out of the WHL\u2019s Kamloops Blazers. Widely praised for his poise and mature, pro-ready game, Brunicke is not eligible to be loaned to the Penguins\u2019 AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, and therefore the organization will need to decide whether the player is best served spending 2025-26 back in the WHL or in the NHL. It\u2019s not an easy decision \u2013 and some clubs have in the past taken the more complicated route of using AHL conditioning stints to buy time until the player can be sent to the World Junior Championships \u2013 but based on Yohe\u2019s reporting it appears the Penguins are likely to give the young defender a chance to start his NHL career.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Metropolitan Division:<\/p>\n

If Brunicke is the young Penguins player who has attracted the most buzz this preseason, netminder Sergei Murashov<\/a> isn\u2019t far behind him in second place. The 21-year-old 2022 fourth-round pick has been excellent in his preseason minutes and is coming off of a stellar debut season in the North American pro circuit. Yohe reports<\/a> that the Penguins\u2019 plan for Murashov is to give him \u201cthe bulk of the work in the AHL this season,\u201d and noted that while the Penguins believe he could be a future number-one goalie, \u201cthey don\u2019t want to impact his development\u201d by bringing him to the NHL too fast. The Penguins have Tristan Jarry<\/a> and Arturs Silovs<\/a> set to form their tandem in net this season, so there is not an immediate need for Murashov at the NHL level. But based on everything he\u2019s shown since arriving from Russia to the Penguins organization, he could become a legitimate factor in the team\u2019s NHL plans as soon as next season.
\nThe Philadelphia Flyers have had a few positive storylines in preseason \u2013 namely the emerging chemistry<\/a> between star sophomore Matvei Michkov<\/a> and prized offseason addition Trevor Zegras<\/a> \u2013 the competition for down-the-lineup defensive roles has not generated such positive buzz. Per The Athletic\u2019s Kevin Kurz<\/a>, Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet \u201chasn\u2019t been overly encouraged\u201d by the performances of the team\u2019s depth blueliners \u2013 namely Helge Grans<\/a>, Adam Ginning<\/a>, and Noah Juulsen<\/a>. Grans was placed on waivers yesterday and is not expected to factor into the team\u2019s opening-night roster. While Ginning and Juulsen have left Tocchet wanting more this preseason, Kurz notes that the two could currently have a leg up in the battle for limited roster spots. According to Kurz, Emil Andrae<\/a> \u201cmay simply be too small for the coaching staff\u2019s liking\u201d to dress in their opening-night lineup, while Egor Zamula<\/a> \u201cstruggled mightily\u201d in Monday\u2019s preseason game and could be losing his grip on a lineup spot. As a result, a big opportunity could lie ahead for Ginning, who got into just one NHL game last season but played in a top-four role in the AHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the emerging storylines coming out of Pittsburgh Penguins training camp has been the exceptional preseason performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[92039,49,48,92040,448,752,753,92041,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-182237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-adam-ginning","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-harrison-brunicke","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-sergei-murashov","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}