{"id":31577,"date":"2025-07-23T16:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/31577\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T16:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:11:14","slug":"ranking-the-jersey-numbers-picks-of-the-new-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/31577\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking the jersey numbers picks of the new Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually by now the Penguins have officially released<\/a> an announcement on the jersey numbers of their new players acquired over the summer (kinda makes ya wonder if another big move or two is coming to bring in some new players, huh?) but that hasn\u2019t been the case yet. Based on listings on their website, let\u2019s go ahead with summer\u2019s most important and correct article to rank the new numbers.<\/p>\n

#6 – Connor Clifton (75)<\/p>\n

A theory that makes no sense but also all the sense in the world is that to wear a number in the 70\u2019s, a player should be at least 6\u20194\u201d. It\u2019s a standout number and you have to look the part (exception that proves the rule, Patric Hornqvist. Playing big also apparently counts). Clifton at 5\u201911\u201d and 195 can\u2019t this pull off. This is the only number Clifton has ever worn in the NHL, but it also messes things up during events like opening night where they announce the team and have someone in the order coming between No. 71 and 87. There\u2019s get-arounds to that but it\u2019s just not as neat and tidy as it could be.<\/p>\n

#5 – Alexander Alexeyev (56)<\/p>\n

Trifling number on its own, although he joins fellow Russian defender Sergei Zubov as the rare No. 56 in Pens\u2019 history (Eric Tangradi was the only other player to use 56, and that was as an assigned, temporary one while breaking in). It\u2019s a shame he\u2019s not wearing a duplicate number since Alex Alexeyev is a partially repeating name, \u2014 though wearing No. 44, 55 or 77 in Pittsburgh probably wouldn\u2019t go so well to measure up to as a defender.<\/p>\n

#4 – Parker Wotherspoon (28)<\/p>\n

This is a pretty standard modern day defenseman number, the problem here is it brings up a \u201chey, that\u2019s some other guy\u2019s number!\u201d connotation to Marcus Pettersson and even further back to the Cup days of Ian Cole. Then again, Wotherspoon is coming off wearing No. 29 in Boston the past two seasons and he definitely can\u2019t do that in Pittsburgh without creating another problem…(And while some clamor for the fun and honor of an official jersey retirement ceremony and banner to commemorate it, it\u2019s pretty cool on its own that it\u2019s been almost a decade of no Penguins wearing No. 29 since Marc-Andre Fleury departed. An unofficial retirement is almost as cool as an official one, lest you turn around a couple of years later and see a forgettable player like Ville Nieminen wearing Ron Francis\u2019s #10..)<\/p>\n

#3 – Matt Dumba (24)<\/p>\n

Dumba wore No. 3 in Dallas, which would have been cool to see the rare single-digit these days for the Pens, but he\u2019s apparently gone back to the number he used when he had the most success in Minnesota from 2015-23. Ideally the Pens will be hoping Dumba can turn back the clock with his old number. Look good, feel good, play good, right? Right? Yeah it probably isn\u2019t going to work like that.<\/p>\n

#2 – Anthony Mantha (39)<\/p>\n

This is the odd number that has been used in Penguin history by both goalies (Brad Thiessen, and the very recent Alex Nedeljkovic) as well as skaters (J.S Dea, David Perron, Luca Caputi and Jon Sim, among others). Mantha\u2019s always been a #39 in every stop of his five-team NHL career, pretty cool and unique number that he\u2019s carved out for himself.<\/p>\n

#1 – Justin Brazeau (16)<\/p>\n

Jason Zucker spoiled the party, but No 16 in the last 15 years in Pittsburgh has been attached to big, increasingly slower, right handed forwards (Brandon Sutter, Eric Fehr). Brazeau will fit right in! 16 is a classic hockey number, traditional and nice. It fits a fourth line mentality to get it, do the job and keep it moving without being a big time number; which makes it perfect for Brazeau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Usually by now the Penguins have officially released an announcement on the jersey numbers of their new players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[424,19807,3258,385,26512,573,15550,1991,26513,5186,99,1596],"class_list":["post-31577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-front-page","tag-jersey","tag-new","tag-nhl","tag-numbers","tag-of","tag-penguins","tag-pensburgh","tag-picks","tag-ranking","tag-sports","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}