Another prospect game and another victory for the Pittsburgh Penguins. This time it was a 5-4 shootout victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
This game was not as dominant of a performance as the one over Ottawa but the Penguins players worth focusing on played well again.
Jean-Sebastien Dea continues to pour in the offense. He had another goal on the power play and set up Anton Zlobin for another power play goal.
Here is the power play goal where he displays some quick hands
Here he is setting the table for Zlobin on a nice entry which led to the goal on a weird bounce:
I have talked up Dea and Zlobin to this point but Josh Archibald also deserves his kudos. He has displayed very good speed and scored again against the Blackhawks. It is nice to see the Penguins getting some tangible results from their more offensive minded prospects so far in this tournament. Here is Archibald shielding off the defender to free up his opportunity to bury the shot.
Training camp this season should be the most interesting it has been in some time. The Penguins have a new coach, they have many new players in the bottom six forward group, and they technically have opening in the top six grouping as well. Can any of the kids step up and make their presence felt? It is one thing to produce against other prospects, it will be a completely different feat to have that same effectiveness against the NHL regulars.
One thing you'll notice is that I haven't really touched on the goaltenders too much and that is because I don't see the value in analyzing a single game played at that position. The goaltender position at the prospect level is tough enough to predict over the course of larger sample sizes let alone just one prospect tournament game.
Here are the shootout highlights:
The Penguins prospects will wrap up the tournament against Toronto 2PM on Tuesday afternoon.
Thanks for reading!