Dan Muse talked about what he was looking for from players looking to get on the radar and offered an insightful comment.
Muse has been liking what he’s seen from the young pair of Owen Pickering and Harrison Brunicke. The two were joined
together at the Prospects Challenge earlier this month in Buffalo and that has carried over through the early part of training camp. So far, so good.
A picture is starting to develop for how Pickering and Brunicke could slot in for the start of the regular season as the Pens’ third pair. While Pickering and Brunicke took their familiar places along side one another Ryan Graves worked with Kris Letang during a scrimmage today, Parker Wortherspoon got some time with Erik Karlsson. A mid-day scrimmage isn’t an absolute indicator of hard and fast future plans but it also could be early signals of how the pieces of the puzzle are getting lined up as a first try, if nothing else.
Of course, given the current state of the Pens’ blueline, there are a lot of possibilities. Ryan Shea and Matt Dumba worked in the scrimmage today and represent another potential third pair for the season. There were others that didn’t play this morning because they will get the opportunity to show their stuff tonight — Caleb Jones, Jack St. Ivany, Alexander Alexeyev and Connor Clifton —which could get sliced and diced into many combinations in the days to come to offer even more options.
Those combinations can be scrambled in a hurry if any element doesn’t develop as the team likes — including what could be questionable matches with their most two important players at the position of Karlsson and Letang. To this point the club has found a match they like and want to see more from with Pickering and Brunicke — their top two defensive prospects — working and growing together in visibly apparent ways during this preseason.
The old phrase “take it a day at a time” is a cliche that does have some truth behind in this situation, as Harrison Brunicke knows already with his NHL training camp experience of last fall being the same as what he is facing this year.
Brunicke impressed at last training camp and he’s drawing rave reviews again. His performance and ability to keep going will dictate whether he’s going back to juniors in the near future or gets up to nine games in the NHL before his contract burns a year to prove that he should stick around a little further.
Brunicke tends to draw more attention due to his young age, 19, and since he either has to play in the NHL or go back to the WHL this season, which makes for a more dramatic and long-lasting decision coming up soon. On the other end of the pairing, the situation is similar for Pickering in the sense that he is looking to avoid assignment back to the AHL and graduate into becoming a full-time NHL player.
Pickering’s comments on the subject mirror that of his partner fairly closely.
“My mentality was as soon as I was drafted to a team before this was to try to make that team in the fall,” Pickering said that day. “That’s kind of the mentality that I have, and I’m going to carry that forward.”
Moving forward more than three years, Pickering’s hopes haven’t changed.
He wants to be in the NHL as soon as possible.
“The goal, since last year, for me has been to be full-time in the NHL,” the rookie defenseman said Sept. 11 in Cranberry. “I try not to get too complicated or specific with the goals that I want. I feel like if I keep them simple and just kind of stick to them every day, it’s better for me.
“I’m honestly not thinking about it too much right now. It’s cliched, but I’m literally focusing on today. Then tomorrow. Then I feel like that will take care of itself if I attack every day. But I feel like since last year, the goal has been to be a full-time NHLer.”
A lot will have to be answered in the next week to 10 days when it comes to figuring out just how Muse and the Penguins are going to go into the 2025-26 season. If the young players in Pickering and Brunicke keep doing their part, they could link up and attempt to achieve their goals together through continued impressive play that wins them NHL jobs.
Muse has been telling his players to “go find a way to do it” in terms of landing their spot. Young Pickering and Brunicke have been making the most so far at the attempt to achieve their individual goals together through continued impressive play, and they just might do it if they can keep building their case with each passing day.
