WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Pittsburgh Penguins’ prospects Owen Pickering and Ville Koivunen are not where they want to be, literally or figuratively.
The Penguins’ season of the rookies has not bloomed as planned. Instead of a rebuilding-type roster full of young players making mistakes and figuring out if they are indeed NHL players, second-chance veteran players have taken those spots, and the team is winning, while the prospects are working on their games in the AHL.
Of course, at different points, Pickering and Koivunen had chances to be a part of it, but were not ready to meet the higher standard.
From different paths, the pair of Penguins prospects have been through the same difficult conversation with Penguins coaches and reached the same destination, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL.
It’s not where either would choose to be while their NHL dreams are so close, but both are chasing their best, or at least the consistency necessary for the NHL game.
While Pickering is fighting to find his identity and be more aggressive, Koivunen has been struggling with skating strength and puck management.
The process is taking a little longer than hoped for, but that’s the process of player development. It’s a little easier for forwards, and Koivunen is a little bit closer, but he needs to smooth out some rough patches in his game, while accentuating others.
“When he’s at his best, he’s a prick,” WBS coach Kirk MacDonald said Sunday, following a 4-3 OT loss to Cleveland in which Koivunen again looked like the winger who had a good run in the NHL at the end of last season.
“It’s a great example, like yesterday, a couple of turnovers that he knows he can’t do. And like you look at the five-game winning streak. I don’t think he turned the puck over five-on-five once, and he was making really, really good puck decisions. And the offense just takes care of itself, because he’s really good at it, right?” said MacDonald.
The Penguins prospect has the rare ability to score goals and make opponents absolutely hate him.
This season, Koivunen was demoted to the WBS Penguins after just a couple of NHL games. He was up and down once more, playing 25 games with just two goals and 10 assists.
Koivunen, 22, had good moments, but a lot of invisibility sandwiching those high points.
As we stood in the carpeted hallway at the Toyota-plex practice facility in Wilkes-Barre, Koivunen laughed and agreed when this writer asked him how he felt about MacDonald’s assessment of his best game.
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly.
But did he get to enough of that part of his game in Pittsburgh?
“I want to do more. But I feel like if you see something first, you can do it. It feels like, if you don’t do it enough first, then it’s like no one cares. What are you gonna say there?” Koivunen said. “So I think first you have to be better on the ice and stuff, and then you can maybe start doing that more.
“I think everyone gets pissed off because sometimes they can’t understand what I say.”
Penguins management had simple directions when they re-assigned him to WBS. The faults in Koivunen’s game at the NHL level were too present, but he’s addressing them. The lack of consistency was joined by an obvious lack of strength on his skates. The scrappy winger wasn’t as chippy and not as present inside the dots or near the net.
“Just gain more strength. (Work) off the ice. On the ice, play more and use my strengths and get to my game better,” Koivunen said.
And the Finnish winger has been working in the weight room and doing as much as he can in-season to build that strength. His improvements were noticeable on Sunday against a physical Cleveland Monsters team that had a plethora of angry defensemen.
Those defensemen were even angrier as Koivunen chipped, chirped, and got into them. And did it for most of three periods, plus overtime. It was the exact game he needed to play to get back to Pittsburgh, and the game he didn’t play in the big show this season.
He’s very amiable for an agitator.
Owen Pickering
The previously lanky defenseman is no longer the gangly kid with moppy hair. He’s grown to 6-foot-5, but more importantly, Pickering just looks … different.
His face is filling out with the increased weight and maturity that comes with age. He stands broader, sturdier, the obvious result of his long work with the organization’s nutritionists and a healthy schedule in the weight room.
In training camp and the preseason, Pickering was quiet. Too quiet. A stay-at-home defenseman won’t burn ink on the scoresheet but needs to be impactful in other ways.
“I mean, (Penguins management’s message) was nothing groundbreaking. It was more just playing with that confidence and making sure that I know that kind of what’s expected of me,” said Pickering. “And then it’s consistency too, and that’s more so my message to myself. I’ve played (29) NHL games, and I know that. I kind of know what it takes. But, I mean, things can take time. So for me, it’s more just understanding what’s expected of me and trying to keep it rolling.”
The left-handed defenseman turned just 22 at the end of January, but under the watchful eyes of PHN, he decidedly did not have a good weekend for the WBS Penguins. The struggles merely underscored his challenges to get back to the NHL. He played four NHL games this season, but failed to make much of a dent.
The flaws last weekend were similar to those at the top level. Pickering wasn’t aggressively defending; he sagged toward the front of the net despite no opponents there. The space he ceded was used against him and the team.
“The last two games, I think he’ll admit they weren’t his best. Big picture, I think he’s done a lot of really good things. He’s been defending really well–he got away from it this weekend, but, yeah, that’s part of the growing pains,” said WBS coach Kirk MacDonald Sunday. “I have no doubt he’s gonna show up tomorrow at practice, and he’s going to work. I think the more he recognizes that the key to defending hard and gets into people, sticks on puck, closes on and puts people into the boards, he can kill plays defensively. And then he can get up (on the play), and skate.”
It’s been a process since Pickering reached a crescendo last season, which included a largely successful 25-game run at the NHL level. He began to taper with murmurs of some friction with veterans who were not so enamored with his boyish haircut or sometimes goofy demeanor.
Defensemen have a much longer path to the NHL, and Pickering is also looking to find or build his identity on the ice. Is he a stay-at-home defenseman or an all-around defender?
It still seems like a work in progress.
“I feel like with every day, you’re still learning, so I feel like I’m gaining more of an understanding for sure on what’s expected of me, and just kind of trying to push towards that,” Pickering said. “Obviously, you’re trying to get better. You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into one thing, and you’re trying to expand your game, but there’s kind of a broader idea of what’s expected. I feel like I’m kind of grasping that and trying to get better at that every day.”
One of the more humorous parts of Pickering’s first NHL run last season was the pantry space he took up while living with fellow Winnipeg native Cody Glass. After eating more than five meals a day, as the Penguins’ training staff worked to help the previously 6-foot-3, 180-pound defenseman become the 6-foot-5, 206-pounder, Pickering has a thing for cereal … “bins and bins” of cereal, Glass once told PHN.
Currently, the cereal of choice is Shredded Wheat. And Pickering left little doubt that he’s looking forward to another chance to buy the milk in Pittsburgh, but he has work to do.
With the glut of left-handed defensemen currently in the Penguins’ system, Pickering will have to wait in line for another chance this season. Still, perhaps more importantly for the organization, he’s setting up for a crucial 2026-27 season, his third professional campaign.
It won’t be make or break, but pivotal might be an understatement.
Tags: Owen Pickering Penguins Prospects Pittsburgh Penguins Ville Koivunen
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