Tonight, the Penguins will conclude their preseason when they host the Buffalo Sabres. Coming into this year’s training camp there weren’t too many roster spots to be had. There was potential for some real upheaval in the roster with Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell all up for new contracts. They all re-signed and all that was left was the bottom of the lineup. When Danton Heinen and Kasperi Kapanen re-signed the opportunity for new players shrunk a little more. Here is one person’s view of the opening lineup next week.
Here’s what I believe opening night lineup will be:
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) October 7, 2022
Guentzel-Sid-Rakell
Zucker-Geno-Rust
Heinen-Carter-Kapanen
McGinn-Blueger-Archibald
Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Smith-Rutta
Thoughts?
I agree with Josh, Yohe, not Archibald. This is likely what things are going to look like. Archibald is an uninspired new addition to the lineup and it looks like he will be the only change to the forward group this year to start the season. Will it be enough? Probably for the playoffs and certainly not for a championship run.
Defensively the top four looks like you would think. The Dumoulin-Letang pairing wasn’t being changed unless Dumoulin was moved off the team via trade. It makes sense to pair Jeff Petry with the Penguins best left defender. What will look way different is the bottom pairing. Jan Rutta and Ty Smith are both new acquisitions. Rutta is an non-descript depth player the team spend too much money on. He will likely be fine in this bottom pairing role, but so was Chad Ruhwedel for 33% of the cost.
The thing I am most interested in seeing play out is Ty Smith. He has some offensive pedigree and I think having him in the bottom pairing in sheltered minutes could work. I’d rather take a chance on a player with his profile than someone who barely gets by with no puck skill. He could flame out in spectacular fashion because his weakness is the defensive side of things and Mike Sullivan usually doesn’t have the patience for mistakes in that area. It would be a really nice surprise if Smith was functional right from the start. I had anticipated he would be sent down to the AHL just on the fact he is eligible to still skip through the waiver process. His play has intrigued the staff enough to where you hear rumors about the Penguins trying to trade Pierre-Olivier Joseph, who does have to pass through waivers.
Today the team had an optional skate, so no line rushes. One bit of information we did get:
#Pens HCMS: Tristan Jarry will play the whole game tonight; Filip Lindberg will back up
— Josh Getzoff (@JG_PxP) October 7, 2022
This is the final tune up for Tristan Jarry. The real games start six games from now so it makes sense to give him a full game. Especially so since he missed an entire preseason game with an illness. Coming off the injury he had it is a good thing to get him some authentic game minutes outside of intrasquad scrimmaging.
We’ll have to see what happens with the rest of the lineup. I would prefer not to see Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, and Bryan Rust in action. Get through today with the top six in tact for the regular season.
Thanks for reading!