Penguins Shuffle Lines, Trim Roster Ahead of Preseason Finale
The short version
- Hendrix Lapierre centered the third line with Ben Kindel and Blake Lizotte injured
- Penguins cut seven players, including Avery Hayes, and reassigned the Ruck twins to Medicine Hat of the WHL
- Rutger McGroarty, Tristan Broz and Owen Pickering skated apart from the main group pending final roster decisions
- Sergei Murashov appears to have won the backup goalie job over Joel Blomqvist
- Nick Robertson drew penalty-kill duty despite limited NHL experience in that role
Injuries to Ben Kindel and Blake Lizotte forced coach Dan Muse to redraw Pittsburgh's forward lines and penalty kill Friday in Cranberry Township.
The Pittsburgh Penguins reshaped their lineup at Friday's practice in Cranberry Township, working around injuries to centers Ben Kindel and Blake Lizotte. Coach Dan Muse moved Hendrix Lapierre into the third-line center spot and gave Nick Robertson an unexpected role on the penalty kill.
The session served as a final tune-up before Saturday's preseason game in Buffalo. The organization made seven roster cuts Friday morning, including Avery Hayes, and reassigned the Ruck twins to Medicine Hat of the WHL.
Several young players pushing for full-time NHL jobs were notably absent from the main group. Rutger McGroarty, Tristan Broz, and Owen Pickering have not yet been assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, though Muse indicated final decisions were coming. "Yeah, I mean, yeah … we're working through those final decisions," Muse said, noting the main group consisted largely of healthy veteran players.
Ville Koivunen stayed with the main group and took a regular turn on the third line alongside Lapierre and Bryan Rust. He also drew onto the second power-play unit. Bill Zonnon, the team's 2025 first-round pick, and defenseman Harrison Brunicke remained in the main group as well, though Zonnon worked in only sparingly during drills.
Brunicke skated alongside extra defenseman Ilya Solovyov, a pairing that suggests he is not the first choice to break camp with the NHL roster. David Gustafsson occasionally centered the fourth line. The projected forward lines featured Nick Robertson with Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell, Egor Chinakhov, Tommy Novak and Evgeni Malkin together, and Elmer Soderblom flanked by Connor Dewar and Filip Hallander.
Goaltender Joel Blomqvist, who played half of one preseason game, was absent, and Sergei Murashov appears to have claimed the second goalie spot behind Arturs Silovs. On defense, pairings included Declan Carlile with Erik Karlsson, Trevor van Riemsdyk with Kris Letang, and Sam Girard with Kaedan Korczak.
Robertson has not killed penalties regularly in Toronto, but Muse pointed to general manager Kyle Dubas's familiarity with him from the Toronto system, where Robertson was a penalty-kill regular. "It's that combination of his speed and also just the ability to make those reads to anticipate plays," Muse said, adding that Robertson killed penalties successfully at the American League level.
The first power play featured Karlsson, Crosby, Rust, Rakell and Novak, while the second unit included Letang, Malkin, Chinakhov, Koivunen and Lapierre. The top penalty-killing pairings combined Dewar, Hallander, Solovyov and Korczak, with van Riemsdyk, Carlile, Robertson and Soderblom on the second group.
Pittsburgh closes its preseason Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center. The game starts at 3:00 PM EDT and airs on NHL Net, MSGB, and SportsNet PIT+.
