It has been a very long summer for Pittsburgh Penguins fans. There haven’t been any meaningful trades made, and the only noteworthy item has been rumors of Sidney Crosby leaving the Penguins. Not very fun! Relief is around the corner. Training camp begins tomorrow. While the stakes aren’t all that high entering the season, there are some things to look for in camp. How will the younger players acclimate themselves against NHL veterans? Which goalie(s) are going to play themselves into NHL minutes, and how will Dan Muse handle the veteran depth players?
The training camp roster has been released, and it includes two new additions who will be here on a PTO contract (not including Marc-Andre Fleury).
Robby Fabbri and Brett Murray have been invited to camp.
Both players are in their late twenties and looking to catch on somewhere. Fabbri has 442 games of NHL experience. He never quite found that next gear that people thought he might reach. At one time, there was hope for him to be a 20-goal scorer, but he hasn’t been able to put together a complete 82-game season to get there to this point. His sample in Anaheim wasn’t encouraging
I think it is fine to bring people like Murray and Fabbri into the mix. Training camp needs bodies, and perhaps you get an outlier performance from the PTO players who are there. Overall, I’d rather the focus be on the younger generation of players. Some of which were in Buffal,o competing in the prospect tournament
Up and comers
One of the players who stood out the most at prospect camp was Avery Hayes. He scored four goals and looked the part with his hustle and results all weekend. At only 22 years of age, he might be on the cusp of becoming someone we could see on a regular basis in the NHL. The key will be to follow up his solid performance by doing so against legit NHL players. If successful on that front, he just may steal a veteran’s spot in the lineup.
Seeing how Hayes, Brunicke, Pickering, Kindel, Koivunen, and Broz fare against the veteran players will be something useful to watch for. One benefit of Erik Karlsson, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell still being on the roster is it gives these players very legit competition to go up against for a few weeks. This can provide a more authentic evaluation than if those three were already off the team.
Goaltenders
For at least one game, Marc-Andre Fleury will be the most interesting thing to watch as far as goaltending goes. You aren’t going to upstage his final bow as a Penguin. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to look for.
I want to see how Joel Blomqvist bounces back from what I would consider a subpar NHL debut last year. He certainly earned the chance for NHL minutes with his play in the AHL. It just didn’t go well once he was with the big club. Some of that may have had to do with the suspect team in front of him, but I don’t think it accounts for everything. He can wash all that away by starting things off right in training camp.
Sergei Murashov is certainly the most intriguing player at the position heading into 2025-26. Can he continue to build upon his success in both the ECHL and AHL? There’s certainly no need to rush his development with the team stuck in neutral at best. However, there is room for him to steal some NHL time if he starts the year in WB/S on fire. I don’t think the organization is worried about taking minutes away from Tristan Jarry
Arturs Silovs also has a chance to steal minutes from Jarry. He has shown flashes of excellence in his career. In the 2023 World Championships for Latvia, he was named best goaltender and won tournament MVP as Latvia won the Bronze Medal over the United States. Last spring, with Abbotsford, he carried the team to a Calder Cup championship and won the AHL playoff MVP. Currently, he only has 19 games of NHL experience and carries an .880 save percentage. This sample isn’t large enough to draw any conclusions, and I think this is a great dart throw by Dubas to see what he’s got. There’s some real success in playoff/tournament settings to hang his hat on.
Veterans
Players like Kevin Hayes, Noel Acciari, Danton Heinen, and Matt Dumba are not going to be tangible pieces for the future of this team. In the case of Hayes and Dumba they were only acquired because the Penguins were bribed with draft picks. It remains to be seen how Coach Muse handles these players. I predict that if there are any ties in performance between them and the younger players that the younger players will be given the ice time. If not, what are we even doing here? You might as well have kept Mike Sullivan around.
We can all start to track these developments tomorrow. Happy hockey season.
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