Here’s the announcement of waivers today. There were no Penguins today, and haven’t been any yet.

There’s a reason for that with three preseason games left to go this week, including one tomorrow. The Penguins still have 58 players on their roster, pretty thick for this time of year.

Let’s do a little breakdown of how things are looking based on the last roster the Penguins gave out.

Forwards (26): Justin Brazeau, Tristan Broz, Cal Burke*, Atley Calvert**, Sidney Crosby, Connor Dewar, Robby Fabbri*, Filip Hallander, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Avery Hayes, Danton Heinen, Aaron Huglen**, Boko Imama, Ben Kindel***, Ville Koivunen, Blake Lizotte, Evgeni Malkin, Anthony Mantha, Aidan McDonough**, Sam Poulin, Valtteri Puustinen, Rickard Rakell, Nolan Renwich**, Bryan Rust, Philip Tomasino

Defensemen (16): Sebastian Aho, Alexander Alexeyev, Harrison Brunicke***, Connor Clifton, Matt Dumba, Ryan Graves, Finn Harding, Caleb Jones, Erik Karlsson, Phil Kemp, Kris Letang, Owen Pickering, Chase Pietila, Ryan Shea, Jack St. Ivany, Parker Wotherspoon

Goalies (5): Marc-Andre Fleury*, Tristan Jarry, Filip Larsson, Sergei Murashov, Arturs Silovs

Key:
*PTOs
** AHL contracts
***Junior eligible players

Injured players who will go straight to the IR, like Kevin Hayes, Joel Blomqvist and presumably Noel Acciari and Rutger McGroarty have not been a part of the official playing roster.

Where will the cuts come from? That’s where the fun begins. Pretty much everyone with an asterisk after their name is facing an uphill battle, though Fabbri and Brunicke might still have more time in the next week to make their case. From there, all the names in bold are bold for a reason, those are players who would have to be waived to get assigned to the AHL and are all in the danger zone for that potentially happening in the next week or so. From there, younger players like Broz, A. Hayes, Harding, Murashov, Pietila and others can be assigned back to the AHL without requiring being placed on waivers.

The question is one of timing, which could also be answered by the game schedule with games on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Friday game, also the only home game, could serve as a final tuneup for much of the eventual lineup. One reason the Pens are carrying so many players who won’t be on the team (like the ones on AHL contracts) is since Monday and Wednesday’s games are on the road, those types of players can help get through those games and the others on the bubble have one more chance to show their stuff and make a case for staying with the NHL team as the season approaches