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Penguins missing top line right wing to start the season |
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The Penguins are set to begin training camp, but they will be without the top line winger to start with. Kasperi Kapanen is having immigration issues.
Per Mike DeFabo, Kapanen has a visa meeting later this week. Assuming the meeting goes as planned Kapanen will still have to quarantine for seven days. This means he will be missing the entirety of training camp. Not only that,he is at risk of missing game action to start the year. This is not ideal. It is certainly not the Penguins fault or Kapanen's, but still not ideal.
The Penguins do not have a wealth of depth on the right wing this year. You have Bryan Rust who has shown to be a top six winger and then you have… well you don’t really have any other bonafide top six right wing players and that includes Kapanen. Without Kapanen you are looking at players like Evan Rodrigues and Brandon Tanev who already have NHL experience. Perhaps Jake Guentzel bumps to the right side and Jared McCann jumps up into the top six. Perhaps someone like Sam Poulin makes the most of the situation and earns some NHL game action. None of these situations are ideal and highlight the lack of scoring depth this roster has especially on the right side.
Given the short season the Penguins don’t have the luxury of working their way through issues that an 82 game season would lend itself to. They are going to have to overcome this adversity right away and get off to a good start this season. They will need to lean on their revamped defense unit. It is where the biggest offseason investments have been made. Moving Hornqvist for Matheson depleted the right side depth at forward. It wasn’t replaced. The bet on defense has to work.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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