There isn’t a lot to discuss from the morning skate today other than Dustin Tokarski was the first goalie off the ice. It was optional and there were no line rushes. The Penguins will be facing the Winnipeg Jets who were in Buffalo last night and earned a 4-2 victory.
Jan Rutta is taking part in the Penguins optional morning skate after a maintenance day yesterday. The other participants are Malkin, O’Connor, Smith, Fedun, Tokarski, and DeSmith.
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) January 13, 2023
Unrelated to tonight’s game are Scott Wheeler’s team prospect rankings. The good news is the Penguins didn’t move down the list. The bad news is they didn’t move up the list. They remain 29th overall to nobody’s surprise.
No. 29: Pittsburgh Penguins: https://t.co/krikpFXfBh
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) January 12, 2023
Here are the top five prospects per Wheeler:
1. Owen Pickering 2. Ty Smith 3. Filip Hallander 4. Sam Poulin 5. Joel Blomqvist
Not a very impressive group. Pickering is an OK prospect, but he doesn’t fit with the Penguins timeline. I would have traded the 1st round pick last year instead of using it. Here is Scott’s passage about Pickering
Pickering’s offensive production still doesn’t jump out at you, and I felt (and feel) that No. 21 was a little too high for him in the draft, but there are plenty of things about him and his game that do jump out at you. He’s an extremely intelligent kid with a long, effortless skating stride that is atypical of a 6-foot-4 defenseman. He’s got an extremely smooth glide to his stride and through his pivots and backwards crossovers, moving from forwards to backwards with ease for a player his size. He’s still really lean and has struggled to add muscle to his frame, but his north-south game is impressive because of his first pass and skating ability. There’s some work to do to add elements to a smooth but unremarkable game inside the offensive zone but he was productive on a low-scoring team last year, has taken a step on a mid-table team this year, his point shot is hard, and his skating will carry him to the NHL. He’s not likely going to be a big point producer at the next level, but he should have two-way value as a second-pairing type at his ceiling and a third-pairing guy at his floor. Nobody who has ever spoken with him was surprised he was named Swift Current’s captain this year, either. Great kid.
The Penguins are betting on Ty Smith turning the corner and the jury is still out. Although, currently he is putting up respectable underlying numbers with Brian Dumoulin, no small feat.
The others I have no expectations for. Filip Lindberg is 6th on the list and I think he has a better chance of making a dent on the NHL roster than most of the players above him. His ankle injury held him back. Below him? It is what it is
It is understandable the Penguins have a bad prospect pool. It is the cost of doing business as a contender. My issue is with Ron Hextall pretending that hanging on to a few draft picks is going to help fix things. It is a lost cause. Ride this era out, bottom out, and then stock up. This isn’t the time to hold on to picks. If it was the time to hold picks you wouldn’t have re-signed Malkin, Letang, Rust, and Rakell. But he did and now he needs to maximize those investments by mortgaging the future. He likely won’t. Trying to do the win now thing while stocking the prospect pool is a fool’s errand given where the Penguins are in their arc.
Thanks for reading!