How acquired: Traded from the Carolina Hurricanes on March 7, 2024<\/p>\n
2024-25 season: Pittsburgh (NHL): 8 GP, 0-7-7, Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton (AHL): 63 GP, 21-35-56<\/p>\n
Koivunen (5-11, 161) was also recalled March 29. He played on the second line with center Evgeni Malkin<\/a> and moved to the first after McGroarty was injured.<\/p>\n The 22-year-old made his NHL debut March 30 and is still looking for his first goal but had at least one assist in six of eight games. Like McGroarty, he expects to be back with the Penguins at the start of this season.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of motivation,\u201d Koivunen said on April 17. \u201cI know I can play here. Just trying to get better, be better next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Projected NHL arrival: This season<\/p>\n How acquired: Selected with No. 11 pick in 2025 NHL Draft<\/p>\n 2024-25 season: Calgary (WHL): 65 GP, 35-64-99<\/p>\n Kindel (5-11, 180) was the first of three first-round picks for the Penguins in 2025, ahead of forwards Bill Zonnon<\/a> (No. 22) and William Horcoff<\/a> (No. 24).<\/p>\n The 18-year-old’s production jumped last season from 60 points (15 goals, 45 assists) with Calgary of the Western Hockey League in 2023-24. That continued with 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) in 11 playoff games.<\/p>\n Kindel has the offensive upside Pittsburgh will need after Crosby and Malkin’s playing days eventually end.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just didn\u2019t want to look back on it and say, \u2018Geez, why did we pass on this guy that had 99 points and then stepped up his game in the playoffs?\u2019\u201d Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas said. \u201cAnd it has all the makings of one of these prototypical ones that we were going to kick ourselves about. … We\u2019re thrilled to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n Projected NHL arrival: 2027-28 season<\/p>\n How acquired: Selected with No. 21 pick in 2022 NHL Draft<\/p>\n 2024-25 season: Pittsburgh (NHL): 25 GP, 1-2-3; Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton (AHL): 47 GP, 2-11-13<\/p>\n Pickering (6-5, 200) got a substantial look in the NHL last season and is another prospect ready to grab a permanent spot. He was mostly used on the third pair but could see his average ice time of 14:49 balloon this season by earning a role on one of the top two pairs.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old has size with enough skill to complement offensive-oriented defensemen Kris Letang<\/a> and Erik Karlsson<\/a>.<\/p>\n Projected NHL arrival: This season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How acquired: Traded from the Carolina Hurricanes on March 7, 2024 2024-25 season: Pittsburgh (NHL): 8 GP, 0-7-7,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-88083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88083","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=88083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}