As the Pittsburgh Penguins get ready to conclude their 3 game road trip tomorrow night at the St. Pete Times forum in Tampa against the Lightning, they made some roster moves yesterday.
With Brooks' Orpik's return to the lineup on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues -- and with him suffering no ill effects afterwards -- the Pens' demoted defenseman Andrew Hutchinson to Wilkes-Barre of the American Hockey League.
No surprise there, really. Hutchinson didn't play poorly with the big club in 5 games. In fact, in many ways, he held his own. On the other hand, he was a -3 in those contests and, between him and teammates on the blueline Ben Lovejoy and Deryk Engelland, he was going to be the first to go down.
Of more import is the fact that with Hutchinson to Wilkes-Barre went the Pens' top forward prospect, Eric Tangradi.
Sending Tangradi down was mostly a by-product of forward Aaron Asham's readiness to return to the lineup Wednesday night after being out of the lineup since the next-to-last pre-season game with a shoulder injury. Pittsburgh needed a roster spot for Asham and Tangradi doesn't need to clear waivers to be demoted.
Other factors went in to sending him down, however. Tangradi only had 1 goal and 1 assist (and a plus/minus of -1) in his 9-game cup-of-coffee to start the season, and in recent games, has rolled primarily on the 4th line -- a place where he isn't going to continue developing all that well.
Or at least not the way the team wants.
Tangradi needs top 6 minutes and the hope is that he will go down to undefeated Wilkes-Barre (6-0) and dominate up-front on one of the best teams in the AHL.
The team is putting on a public face about how Tangradi is mostly NHL ready and just needs a little more seasoning before he'll be an impact regular with the big club.
I'm not necessarily convinced, however.
At least not yet.
Tangradi was supposed to be a top prospect when he was acquired with LW Chris Kunitz in the deal that sent defensman Ryan Whitney to the Anaheim Ducks --- and understandably so given his physical talents. But while he has proven he has the size and strength to work in front of the net, in the corners and along the wall, he hasn't shown top-caliber hands he needs to consistently contribute offensively at the NHL level so far, and that gives me some concern as to whether he'll ultimately develop into the reliable top-6 forward prospect the Penguins have been missing in their organization for quite some time.
I'm certainly not writing off the BIG DOG, but he needs to show the type of offensive punch with the Baby Penguins that a guy like Dustin Jeffrey showed last season -- something along the lines of 30-35 goals and a 65-70 point season.
Asham, meanwhile, is very eager to get into the lineup, and who can blame him?
Coincidentally, he's coming back just in time to face his former team -- the Philadelphia Flyers -- who visit the CONSOL Energy Center on Friday night.
Teammate Jordan Staal also continues to come along nicely in his recovery. He's been a full participant in practice for going on 5 days or so now, and is probably about a week or so away from returning. I'd look for him to rejoin the lineup sometime on the Penguins' next road trip, a 4-gamer which starts Saturday night in Carolina against the Hurricanes and continues out on the West Coast next week.
Joining him back in the lineup probably at some point during that trip will be defenseman Zbynek Michalek, who is now also practicing with the team.
Michalek is at the 2-week point since he suffered his shoulder injury, so participating in full-contact drills at this point is a positive development for him.
I'll be anxious to see which players up front and on the blueline Head Coach Dan Bylsma decides to scratch when both #11 and #4 get back. The Penguins have a lot of solid numbers right now and a few players who have been regulars in the lineup so far are going to have to take a different view of the action in the very near future.
The press-box view.
Marc-Andre Fleury is expected to be in goal tomorrow night, by the way. He'll be challenged by a Lightning squad that has an impressive collection of offensive forwards and who are playing well as a team.
More soon.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment