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My opening night lineup, fringe roster choices, goalie prospects, and more

September 14, 2022, 8:06 PM ET [66 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Time for the mid-September mailbag.




I obviously don’t have any inside info into what Mike Sullivan will do with his lineup on opening night, but I can make some educated guesses based on the fact he is entering his eighth(!) season as Penguins head coach. We know he has some go to lines and pairings. This is my best guess on what he will go with:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Malkin-Rakell
Heinen-Carter-Kapanen
McGinn-Blueger-Archibald/Poehler

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Rutta-Ruhwedel

Jarry
DeSmith

There are only so many things you can do with the players available. I still get incredibly frustrated with all the wasted money on what amounts to fringe players on the roster. This roster should look much better than it does. Re-signing all the top end players isn’t the reason they don’t have depth. There was enough money to go around.

I would have a wildly different top six than what I think Mike Sullivan will do. Sullivan will go with what works. We already know it works. I want to gain new information on different combos. You can always go back to what you know works.

Zucker-Crosby-Rakell
Guentzel-Malkin-Rust
Heinen-Carter-ugh Kapanen
O’Connor/Poehling-Blueger-McGinn

Jason Zucker looked good with Sid when he originally came over. It hasn’t been revisited. I would try it again. I also want a look with Rakell up with the captain. If this line works then you have a true force with the Guentzel-Malkin-Rust trio. Not only that, but Jeff Petry provides some desperately needed offense from the back end that has been lacking since Justin Schultz was having decent seasons with the Penguins. Evgeni Malkin will show up in a huge way if you give him some players to work with. He’s been fighting for scraps for a couple of years let alone the injury stuff.

The bottoms six is what it is. I can’t shine it up. I’m going to see what Drew O’Connor has to offer and if not look to see what Ryan Poehling can do. I have no interest in Josh Archibald or Drew Caggiula.

Defensively I’m probably going to start the same way as Sullivan

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Petry
Rutta-Ruhwedel

Seeing Dumoulin and Rutta here taking up ~7M in cap space is tough to swallow. I don’t know enough about Ty Smith to slide him into the lineup yet but I like the idea of him and his skillset better than Rutta.




I hope Drew O’Connor gets another look. His underlying numbers were solid. He is 24 years old so not quite a prospect anymore. He is entering the show me or don’t territory. Especially, considering he is trying to earn a spot on a roster with the intent of competing for a title.

I also favor seeing Ryan Poehling over the Archibald/Caggiula combo. Poehling is a former first round pick. I’d like to think they saw something in him to get him thrown in. He has a better first name than the other two, so there’s that. He is in a similar situation as O’Connor. At 23 he is entering the time period where he has to show he belongs at the NHL level. To this point he only has 85 career NHL games.

If I were Sullivan I would give O’Connor and Poehling an inside track. I might even throw Alex Nylander into the mix over Archibald and Caggiula as well. Although, I had a pretty close look at Nylander buried on the Rochester Americans 4th line for multiple years.




Speaking of which, I think he has to build on his AHL production to get a look. I don’t see a path for him to join the big club’s starting lineup on opening night. I’d love to see a point per game from him in the AHL. He had 30 points in 44 games. At his age (24) it isn’t quite enough to project him as a regular NHL player at this stage. He is a dark horse candidate to rise the ranks, but he is also in one of the worst farm systems in the league. I wouldn’t rely on him. Stranger things have happened.




Pierre-Olivier Joseph is not eligible for waivers. Or I should say he isn’t eligible to pass through them for free anymore. Somebody could claim him. For that reason, he will be up with the big club. I think he will start as the extra guy and not in the starting lineup. Hopefully, he plays his way into a role with the starting six and makes Dumoulin expendable.
As for Ty Smith he is going to be a victim of his circumstances unless he has an unreal camp and even then I think he is destined for the Baby Penguins. He can pass through waivers without the threat of somebody claiming him. So that’s how it will play out for him. He is one of the more interesting players in the system now. I really hope he finds his stride and becomes a player who can provide offense from the backend for the Penguins.




Short term I have to go with Filip Lindberg because he is here with the Baby Penguins and is 23 years old. He was lights out in college and won a national championship as a starting goaltender. He had a .915 save percentage in WB/S, but ran into injury issues which kept him off the ice.

Blomqvist did play a game with WB/S last year and put up a .920 save percentage in that game after the Karpat season ended. In 20 games with Karpat in the Liiga last year he had an excellent .940 save percentage. In seven playoff games it was .950. The Finnish team decided not to roster him at the World Junior Championships this summer. They thought he was more focused on being a pro than contributing to the national team. That seems like a good thing if you’re the Penguins.

Long term it is too early to call. Goalies are tough to peg. Both of these players have had great success at the lower levels they’ve played at. It would be a really great thing for the Penguins cap if Lindberg could slide into an NHL role just as Jarry wants his raise and then if Blomqvist can do it when Lindberg would be expecting his. That is a best case scenario.




Always greater than zero. We both enjoy doing the podcast with one another. The schedule is tough when you are dealing with the wildly different time zones of North American and Australia. Our window to record was usually Friday afternoon and it made things tough on my end due to the fact it is Friday afternoon and that I just got done talking all day everyday as a teacher for five days in a row. Student behaviors throughout the COVID era have been suspect at best. It made it tough to be motivated to talk at the end of the week. Truth be told it makes writing difficult as well. This year’s start to the school year has been much better. Behaviors are normalizing. I don’t know if we’ll have one before the season, but I can’t imagine going the entire season without recording a few times.

Thanks for reading!
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