The Pittsburgh Penguins are heading into next season with a lot of faith placed in players who haven’t yet proven they can handle the job.
That uncertainty is clearest on the back end and in goal. Pittsburgh has already moved on from Parker Wotherspoon and Ryan Shea, two of its better left-side defensemen from last season, and it also let Stuart Skinner go, leaving a major opening in net. The organization does have internal options, but the real question is whether those players are ready to carry those spots - and what happens if they aren’t.
This isn’t a brand-new problem for the Penguins. They were in a similar spot last year, staring at a left side of the defense that looked thin on top-four talent and seemed to leave Ryan Graves as a possible NHL option. Instead, Shea and Wotherspoon ended up doing far more than expected, and Pittsburgh is hoping for another round of that kind of surprise production.
The biggest name in that conversation is Samuel Girard, whom the Penguins are counting on to get his game back on track. Beyond him, the team is banking on Owen Pickering, a first-round pick in 2022 who has spent much of the past couple of seasons in the AHL. Pickering looked more settled last year with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and became an important part of its run to the Conference Finals, but his overall stock has slipped after years of uneven development.
Still, players with Pickering’s profile often need time. He has the size and tools to become a quiet, dependable stay-at-home defenseman, and Jesse Marshall of The Athletic once compared him to former Penguins blueliner Brian Dumoulin.
That comparison carries some weight because Dumoulin followed a similar path, not becoming an NHL regular until he was 24 before landing next to Kris Letang on the top pair during Pittsburgh’s back-to-back Stanley Cup runs in 2016 and 2017. Pickering is not being asked to repeat that kind of story, but the Penguins would love a similar late-blooming rise because they do not have much margin for error on the left side.
Harrison Brunicke could also be part of the answer. The Penguins’ 2024 second-round pick is being sheltered to some degree by the presence of Erik Karlsson, Letang and Kaedan Korczak on the right side, a group that is expected to open the season as the top three there.
Trevor van Riemsdyk, signed on July 1st, can play either side and is likely to begin on the left because Pittsburgh is short on options. Brunicke could still spend another year in the AHL, but a strong camp could push him into the NHL picture right away.
Even if Brunicke starts in the minors, the Penguins’ blue line will still include some inexperience. Declan Carlile, another July 1st addition from Tampa Bay, has only 46 NHL games under his belt at age 26, and 42 of those came over the past year.
In goal, Pittsburgh is taking the same youth-first approach. Skinner was not re-signed, even though he was well liked in the locker room.
That leaves Arturs Silovs and 22-year-old rookie Sergei Murashov to handle the net. Skinner was not especially strong in Pittsburgh, but he still looked like the safer short-term option compared with Silovs, who had a shaky series last year before catching fire in the playoffs.
That postseason showing earned Silovs a one-year, $2.8MM extension, and he is expected to share the crease with Murashov, who is viewed internally as the heir apparent.
The Penguins are extremely high on Murashov and believe he has the kind of ceiling that could make him a superstar in the NHL. He has impressed at every level so far, but goaltending is a tricky business, especially for young players entering the league. Pittsburgh knows that better than most after seeing the development paths of Marc-Andre Fleury, Matt Murray and Tristan Jarry go off course in different ways.
So while the Penguins are not leaning on youth up front, they are clearly asking it to carry a major load on defense and in net. Silovs and Murashov could form a stabilizing tandem, or they could end up as the worst goaltending pair in the league.
The same uncertainty hangs over the defense, which could settle in as a reliable group or unravel into one of the league’s weakest units. For now, Kyle Dubas is once again betting that unproven talent can help the older core push Pittsburgh toward the playoffs.
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