Buckle up, big time changes are coming to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ lineup.
Departing the 23-man roster and headed to the IR will be Noel Acciari, Justin Brazeau and Tristan Jarry. Owen Pickering will be going back down the the AHL.
Coming up are veterans Danton Heinen and Ryan Graves, as well as rookie goalie Sergei Murashov.
As a refresher, the IR designation means players are out a minimum of seven days from their injury. In Brazeau’s case, that could be soon since he was injured in the game on 10/30 and was announced as a day-to-day injury. Acciari left last night’s game against Toronto after playing two shifts with an undisclosed upper body injury. Jarry finished the game, though he gave up four goals in the third period without any obvious injury concerns, and as of now there is no updates as to the severity of their injuries.
Coming up will be a pair of veterans looking for redemption, after taking the tough situation of a demotion well. Heinen scored 14 points in 10 AHL games, which is currently tied for the league-lead in points. Graves pitched in seven points (1G+6A) in 10 games.
The more exciting piece is Murashov, who was named the AHL’s goalie of the month for October today. The 21-year old could be in-line for his NHL debut, being as Jarry will have to stay on the IR for the upcoming stretch starting on Thursday where Pittsburgh plays three games in the next four days.
Pickering appeared in the last four NHL games, with the final two outings against Winnipeg and Toronto getting rocky for the youngster. The Pens have had an issue with the depth of their left shot defensemen with Caleb Jones sidelined with injury and gave Pickering the first chance to step in and run with the ball there. He wasn’t getting it done so now they’ll turn back to their free agent bust signing of Graves to start salvaging his career and part of their blueline.
Astute readers might also note that the team sent four players off the roster and only brought up three players from the minors and are light by one forward after all these moves. Forward Kevin Hayes, who has missed the balance of the season to date, is approaching a return from IR himself and could be activated at any time, which would only bring the team back to 22 healthy skaters.
Of another piece of interest is that rookie defenseman Harrison Brunicke was not included in the players who departed the roster today. Brunicke’s entry level contract will begin if he appears in one more NHL game, the team has not made the plans clear yet if they are going to keep him in the NHL or return him to his junior team. Of course, they could always slow-play the decision by making Brunicke a healthy scratch and play depth defenseman like Connor Clifton or Matt Dumba until further determination is made.
The Pens are scheduled to practice tomorrow and we should get indications of how the new players will be slotting back into the lineup, and perhaps more information on the severity of some of the injuries that came to light today.
