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Mike Sullivan gives a snapshot into what regular season combos might be |
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Most of training camp is fawning over really small samples and hoping players take an unreasonably large step forward, especially the prospects of an organization. Over the years I try not to take too much out of it. The one thing you can get a feel for is when coaches start to put lines together that use their best available players. Mike Sullivan has done just that
The Penguins “top” line heading into the season is logical. They put their best left wing, center, and right wing on the same line. Hard to fault Sullivan there.
Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen are the next best set of wingers. Evan Rodrigues is definitely not the next best center. I would let Teddy Blueger play with Zucker and Kapanen. You can spread upper end talent on the roster to try and pull up the non-dynamic depth, but when you’re as thin as the Penguins are to start the season I would load up the top two lines with the best six players. As it stands I think Blueger is one of them.
Instead, Blueger will be playing with newcomers Brock McGinn and Danton Heinen. I suppose the thought process here is to give them the second best available center to see how things go and learn their fit on the team. It’s preseason so, sure.
Brian Boyle is likely to be the fourth line center and Dominik Simon is looking like he is going to make the opening night roster. Simon was fine his first stint in Pittsburgh. He’s not a top line player and I don’t think they will be asking him to reprise that role here. He isn’t good at scoring goals, but he can create time and space for linemates by using awareness and passing.
As for the defense there is no surprise at the top. Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin will continue to anchor the top line. The big news here is the early intention of placing John Marino with Mike Matheson and not Marcus Pettersson. This is a big year for John Marino. His second NHL season was closer to being a bust than productive. Was the rookie campaign fool’s gold? We’re going to get a larger sample of evidence this year to find out. He needs to be effective because the Penguins can’t afford to miss on the number of mid-tier contracts they’ve been missing on the past few years. Marino’s new deal has kicked in to the tune of 4.4M. He’ll need to live up to it. Cody Ceci is not available as an insurance policy anymore. Perennial 7th defenseman Chad Ruhwedel is the next man up on the right side these days.
Early returns on Poulin and Legare are meh. They aren’t really doing anything to say “hey look at me, I’m ready for this”. As a result the team has moved them to the B squad. I would rather see them get more looks with the A team whether it is “deserved” or not. I’d rather see more reps for them than Drew O’Connor or Anthony Angello. Here are how the two groups look.
The Penguins will be taking on the Sabres tomorrow night.
Thanks for reading!
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