Why in the world wasn’t this Pittsburgh Penguins prospect on the list, and what are you smoking to have that prospect so high on the list?

This week, Pittsburgh Hockey Now released its annual Penguins Prospect list, but this summer, we expanded it to the top 20. Yet, there were still a few prospects who could have–perhaps should have–made the list, but did not.

Accordingly, the overall prospect quality and volume is an extraordinary compliment to both Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas, but also vice president of player personnel Wes Clark, who is Dubas’s trusted draft guru and is currently on what could develop into a generationally good heater.

In his last five drafts, including his last two with the Toronto Maple Leafs before coming to the Penguins on July 9, 2024, Clark has used late first and second round picks to draft Easton Cowan, Fraser Minten, Ben Kindel, Bill Zonnon, Will Horcoff, and the Ruck twins.

Toronto also selected Ben Danforth with the 30th pick in the 2024 draft, just days before Clark left the organization for the Penguins. For those who watched the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins playoff run, Danforth was a solid force for Toronto in the conference final, which were his first professional games.

So, yeah, Clark has earned the benefit of any doubts.

Most importantly, the current Penguins prospect pool has no less than a dozen players who should reach the NHL, which is an enormous leap from just a few years ago when the team had … basically none. Just three of PHN’s top 20 were selected in the brief Ron Hextall era, though they are important cogs in what comes next.

Goalie Sergei Murashov and defenseman Owen Pickering are the top Hextall picks still in the organization, and center Tristan Broz is a late bloomer with the physical tools and hunger to get to the NHL, but is still in the midst of his transition to center. However, that also means that 17 of the Penguins’ top 20 have been acquired under Dubas in the last three years.

Overall Depth

Curiously, there seems to be a groundswell of disappointment in the Penguins’ prospect pool, primarily amongst the Penguins fanbase but also just a whiff of impatience from the Penguins front office.

Dubas is trying in vain to land a star player by dangling his prospects and draft picks, but has thus far been priced out of the market. Consequently, Dubas may have been a little resigned, if not just a touch exasperated, following the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft.

Fans may see the up-and-down progress of Pickering, combined with the recent struggles at the NHL level by Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen, and being ready to abandon the process, the overall depth of potentially talented players should not be ignored.

Indeed, McGroarty and Koivunen have not filled the net as they and the team had hoped, but McGroarty can easily settle into a bottom-six penalty killer role at any time. While it invited some scoffs, the reason that Pickering rocketed to fifth on the PHN list was his rapid elevation and gutsy performance in the AHL playoffs, trying to play on a broken foot. It surely seems that effort and the final couple of months of the AHL season changed the Penguins’ outlook on Pickering.

Pickering, 22, is maturing and physically maturing, too. Putting him at No. 5 ahead of others was a no-brainer because he will play in the NHL this season, and it seems like he has finally found his identity as a mobile shutdown defenseman. Now that he knows his direction, it’s a matter of refining his game for the final step.

Realistically, there should be real optimism regarding the rest of the pool because the organization has some very talented players who project into the top six forwards at the NHL level. From 2025 first-rounder Bill Zonnon, who should arrive by the middle of next season, to Will Horcoff, who has settled into becoming a winger, to 2026 top picks Liam and Markus Ruck, who project to land sometime in 2028 or 2029, they will combine with Kindel to create a talented young nucleus.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Prospect Snubs/Honorable Mentions

Peyton Kettles, 18, was the team’s 2025 second-round pick and was promptly snubbed by PHN on the prospect list.

How? Why? You know nothing, Jon Snow!

Unfortunately for the team and player, Kettles missed almost all of last season with a shoulder injury. The big stay-home defenseman with some snarl, who is 6-foot-6 and 196 pounds, played only five games last season before returning for the pressure cooker of the Memorial Cup at the end of the season.

In short, he was snubbed because we simply don’t know how healthy he will be moving forward (shoulders are quite important to physical defensemen), and don’t have any sense of his development.

Another snub/honorable mention was Brady Peddle, 19, one of the team’s three 2025 third-rounders. PHN was quite impressed by Peddle at the recent development camp. He showed next-level speed and physical tools in a short time.

According to Penguins director of player development Tom Kostopoulos, Peddle made great strides late last season. Perhaps the most of any prospect.

Make no mistake, Peddle is rising rapidly. He’s 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, and bears a resemblance to Canadian actor James Van Der Beek. Or former Penguins D-man Brooks Orpik? However, Peddle had only 19 points in 62 games with the Charlottetown Islanders of the QMJHL and will be a freshman this season at Michigan State. His stat line and late development are why he didn’t make the list, losing out in favor of others who have already turned pro, such as Finn Harding and Chase Pietila.

Peddle or a Van Der Beek?

The last of our honorable mentions is Mac Swanson, 20, a mighty mouse player at the University of North Dakota. He took a big step forward in his sophomore year at UND, netting 11 goals with 28 points in 40 games. He was the other 2024 seventh-rounder, taken after Finn Harding.

He’s a talented player but likely limited by his 5-foot-8, 175-pound tale of the tape.

Penguins Trade?

Bluntly, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ prospect pool is good. There will be some surprises (see also: Ryan Miller, Peddle), some players who don’t reach their fullest potential, some who wash out, and others who are exactly as hoped.

However, most of the players will rate higher with the Penguins than they will with other teams, and the reason that caveat is important is that it limits their trade value.

Zonnon and Horcoff should be on the other team’s radars, just as Kindel certainly is, but other teams won’t have the same optimism and will instead see risk in players like McGroarty and Pickering.

Also to the Penguins’ detriment, other GMs see Dubas remaining competitive, which decreases the value of their first-round pick. Of course, Dubas will top-10 protect any pick, but knowing an acquired pick could be 22nd rather than getting one of a string of high picks changes the calculus of any deal.

As Dubas alluded after the first round of the draft, “We didn’t have a top-10 pick,” and those were the trade fodder that got deals done.

After an awkward free agency period, it might seem the Penguins are in line for a top-10 pick next June, and it will be interesting to see if Dubas attempts to move that pick at mid-season for his star player. If indeed that’s what Dubas wants to do.

Tags: kyle dubas Owen Pickering penguins blog Penguins Prospects Penguins Trade rutger mcgroarty wes clark

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