The Pittsburgh Penguins will have a lot of decisions to make regarding some of their young players before the puck drops on the regular season Oct. 7 against the New York Rangers.
As of now, they have 13 forwards, eight defensemen, and two goaltenders on their active roster. The forward battle situation will be interesting, especially since Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen are not on the active roster as of now. But the battle on the back end may be even more intriguing.
And one Penguins’ defensive prospect has an uphill climb in order to assert himself onto the NHL roster out of training camp.
Owen Pickering – selected 21st overall by the Penguins in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft – got a taste of NHL action last season, as he was called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) midway through the season and played in 25 games for Pittsburgh. In those 25 games, he registered a goal and three points as well as a minus-5 to go along with an 14:49 of ice time on average.
The 21-year-old impressed so much in the first handful-plus of games that the Penguins elected to keep him around despite having the option to send him down – and he even saw some top-four minutes alongside Kris Letang. His play dropped off a bit toward the end of his stint, which ultimately led to his re-assignment to the AHL on Jan. 25.
But Pickering said that he is ready for full-time NHL action in 2025-26, and he’s going to come ready to prove he’s worthy.
"You never want to get sent back," Pickering said. "You always want to be in the NHL. I feel like I proved to myself that I can play in the NHL.
"I want to be full-time next year, I want to be [in Pittsburgh] the whole year. That's the goal."
While the 6-foot-5, 200-pound Pickering appears to be ready to make the jump to the NHL, it may not be that simple – especially with the current situation on the left side of the Penguins’ blue line.
As it stands, the Penguins have four defensemen on each side of the blue line on their active roster. Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Matt Dumba, and Connor Clifton occupy the right side, while Ryan Graves and Ryan Shea as well as free agent signees Parker Wotherspoon and Alex Alexeyev have left-side roster spots.
Pickering – a left defenseman – will already have to fight hard to make the roster because of the fact that the Penguins already have several candidates in the mix at the NHL level. Graves’s contract makes him difficult to move off the roster. Shea was just re-signed. And the other two were just signed out of free agency.
Without some movement prior to training camp, it’s hard to see Pickering having a leg–up on any of those guys. And even Penguins GM and POHO Kyle Dubas said that the young blueliner needs to have a great camp in order to stand out.
“He's got to have a great summer,” Dubas said in his press conference with the media following the conclusion of the Penguins’ 2024-25 season. “We can't have him same as we had him go down, settling into a 12-13 minute a night role. He needs to come in and push his way into 17-18-19-20 minutes and earn that.”
And in terms of Pickering potentially playing in a top-four role?
“He played for the team [last] year, but is he ready to step into one of those roles?” Dubas said. “I don't think so.”
But – even though Dubas may think that Pickering is not ready for an elevated role in the lineup, the one advantage he has is that there isn’t really anyone who is a lock to be playing in the top-two spots on the left side at this point, so those spots are literally anyone’s for the taking. If Pickering has a good enough training camp, he very well could be considered for one of those roles if he shows he is capable of handling it.
If the Penguins had their way with Pickering, he would likely be on the bottom-pairing at the NHL level and getting sheltered minutes next season. But, given the logjam situation, that may be a difficult to accomplish. They may think it’s better for him to be logging top-pair minutes in WBS rather than getting sheltered minutes in the NHL.
Regardless, Pickering will be a player to watch in training camp, and he probably deserves to start the season continuing his development on the NHL roster. Only time and performance will tell whether or not this ends up being the case, but rest assured that the Penguins are confident that Pickering will be part of their future.
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Feature Image Credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images
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