The players we’re most interested to see whether they rise or fall this training camp
Last year we marveled about how quickly Kyle Dubas turned the Penguins over as soon as he arrived, with what ended up being eight new players to the roster. He’s done about the same again this year, there could be as many as seven new players making their Penguin debut on opening night this season.
The shuffling of the deck has been mostly at the bottom of the lineup with a ton of players coming and going. Whether it’s through waivers (John Ludvig, the departed Jansen Harkins), trades (Emil Bemstrom, Cody Glass, Michael Bunting, Kevin Hayes, Rutger McGroarty), tryouts (Jesse Puljujarvi), free agency (Sebastian Aho, Anthony Beauvillier, Matt Grzelcyk, Blake Lizotte) the Penguins have left no stones unturned in the effort to bring in new faces.
Then again, interest and intrigue can sour quickly — just take a look back to last year when Reilly Smith and Ryan Graves were among the players that we were most interested in seeing. That excitement didn’t last very long in either case.
Still, with the falling temperatures and autumn around the corner, another hockey season is about to dawn. Here are the Penguin players I’m most interested in seeing this season.
Rutger McGroarty
An obvious answer is still the correct one, right? McGroarty is the Pens’ first young forward prospect with this much upside and excitement in a long time. Too long of a time. The future is open and limitless for McGroarty, and with his enthusiasm and high-energy levels he should be a fan favorite in no time. Hopefully his game translates as well as Pittsburgh thinks it will. The question is timing and role. Sidney Crosby does still need a true fit for him on the left wing, but asking a 20-year old with no pro experience to fill that spot could be too much too soon. Ideally McGroarty uses his motor and wins an NHL roster spot out of training camp on a lower line, and then it probably won’t take too long for him to work his way up the lineup into a bigger and bigger position as the season goes along.
Cody Glass
If Cody Glass had a contract half of the $2.5 million that it pays him now, he’s probably still in Nashville this season. But due to the Predators needing to trim salary Glass was the easiest and most replaceable choice for them to kick down the road. Glass is only 25-years old and is more than just a “hey he was picked high in the draft seven years ago” novelty that doesn’t really matter much any longer. Glass had a 14-goal and 35-point season as recently as 2022-23. 35 points is more than Drew O’Connor and Lars Eller scored last season, by the way. And Glass is 6’3” and 210 pounds. The Penguins are beyond loaded with bottom-six forward options to the point where it’s possible that Glass doesn’t even make the NHL roster out of camp. But we should expect that he will be receiving every chance to carve out a spot very early this season if everything goes right for him and he’s as good as many are expecting.
Valtteri Puustinen
Puustinen has had an uneven career. He was drafted late and popped into view with some great seasons in Finland. Then he was buried in the AHL for two years and almost an afterthought before getting a chance last season in the NHL and making the most of it. But again, with players like Glass, McGroarty, Anthony Beauvillier, Kevin Hayes and Blake Lizotte all new to the organization, where does that leave Puustinen for 2023-24? Puustinen was in the lineup frequently down the stretch (including all nine Penguin games in April 2024) but he only averaged 9:49 per game and scored two points in those nine games. It’ll be interesting to see if he starts camp in a stable, projectable to the lineup position (like playing with Lars Eller, where Puustinen worked with a lot last year) or is more of a depth piece floating around with possible AHL options. Puustinen is going to have to really show something in order to make the NHL team out of camp this time around.
Sergei Murashov
Not that he can or should be expected to factor into the NHL roster this fall, but it will be fun to see Murashov (and Joel Blomqvist, for that matter) in net during training camp interacting with the NHL players. Murashov was almost impossible to score on in summer practices and in development camp, and it’s an easy prediction that he’s going to shine in the upcoming prospects challenge in Buffalo in just a few weeks. And right now the NHL guys almost certainly don’t know anything about how good this goalie is that they’re about to get to know. It’ll be fun to see their introduction, it’s not hard to imagine that Murashov could be the early talk of camp by impressing his NHL teammates.
Kevin Hayes
Hayes is a lot of things as a person and player and boring isn’t one of him. He’s been dumped by his last two teams rather unceremoniously. He’s suffered more very public personal heartbreak with the loss of a close friend only a few years after his brother’s passing. What does he have in store for 2024-25? Are the Penguins going to keep him at center? If so, who does he play with and how much defensively can he offer? Can he get to the net and get some shots away better than the last few seasons? Lots of questions abound. Given that Dubas was highly anti-buyout in comments last summer, Hayes and the Penguins could well be together for two seasons. Seeing if it’s going to be more “Jeff Carter 2021” or “Jeff Carter 2023” will be something to pay attention to from the early days of training camp.