{"id":145358,"date":"2025-08-14T15:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/145358\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T15:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:05:14","slug":"who-could-make-their-nhl-debuts-for-the-penguins-in-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/145358\/","title":{"rendered":"Who could make their NHL debuts for the Penguins in 2025-26?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is one thing that Rutger McGroarty, Joel Blomqvist, Owen Pickering and Ville Koivunen have in common? All skated a solo rookie lap to signify their first NHL game in the 2024-25 season<\/a>. Look at that list of names again to let the impact settle in; all were 20-23 years old, former high draft picks and could all be fairly decent-sized players for the Penguins for years to come. That\u2019s a nice crop of young talent making it\u2019s way to the NHL.<\/p>\n

The challenge in Pittsburgh will be to continue that. None of the 13 players they drafted this summer are expected to play in the NHL this season, which is completely natural and expected. It takes a while for draft pick to turn into prospect to develop into an actual NHL caliber player.<\/p>\n

Who could be the next in the pipeline to skate in the NHL for the first time in the upcoming season? Let\u2019s take a shot at predicting it.<\/p>\n

Harrison Brunicke<\/strong> \u2014 It\u2019s hard to state how much the Pens like this kid and how bright his future is looking. At just 19 years old, Brunicke has to play in the NHL or be assigned back to this junior team in Western Canada for the season. The Pens can play him up to nine games without tolling a year of his contract, which seems like a very possible path that could unfold if Brunicke has the type of impressive training camp that everyone is coming to expect at this point. Sure, Pittsburgh has a lot of right shot defensemen, and sure it\u2019ll require some flexibility to get Brunicke in there. There\u2019s a lot TBD, but if Brunicke is one of the Pens\u2019 top defenders at camp, he\u2019s going to get at least a look and chance in the NHL.<\/p>\n

Tristan Broz<\/strong> \u2014 Could there be a path to some NHL games this season for Broz? Sure. It would be kinda nice if the Pens put someone like Broz ahead of Joona Koppanen in the call-up line. Broz turns 23 this October and it\u2019s getting close to the point where it\u2019s time to see if he\u2019s got what it takes. He can play center, he\u2019s pretty good all-around, it wouldn\u2019t be hard to see a scenario where some injuries strike and the Pens need to give him a chance.<\/p>\n

Avery Hayes<\/strong> \u2014 A lot of what\u2019s said about Broz applies here to Hayes. Hayes could complete his \u201cConor Sheary circuit\u201d by going from undrafted player to AHL contract to NHL contract to now looking to be an NHL player. Hayes scored 23 goals for Wilkes last year \u2014 no one scored more. He\u2019s got a knack for making good things happen while he\u2019s on the ice. Players like Sam Poulin or Valtteri Puustinen can serve a purpose but have had their chances over the years and been only marginally effective. It could be time for Hayes to surpass them on the organizational depth chart to see if he can offer more.<\/p>\n

Ben Kindel <\/strong>\u2014 Above, we wrote that no 2025 NHL draft pick should be expected to play in the NHL this season. That\u2019s correct. But the thing about training camp surprises is that they go against expectations. No one had Brunicke on the radar 12 months ago to make a run at an NHL job, but he did. Who\u2019s to say that Kindel, the 11th pick in the 2025 draft, can\u2019t do the same? Kindel isn\u2019t in-line to play all season in Pittsburgh, he needs some work and general experience-gaining over the next couple of years as he grows and gets stronger. But he\u2019s got a high hockey IQ and did score 99 points in the WHL last year as a 17-year old, there\u2019s some skill there. It\u2019s an extreme longshot bet that Kindel gets put in position to practice with the NHL caliber players, but if he gets an opportunity there\u2019s always that outside chance of making the most of it. Don\u2019t count on it happening, but we\u2019ll throw in the hopeful mention here just the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is one thing that Rutger McGroarty, Joel Blomqvist, Owen Pickering and Ville Koivunen have in common? All…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,76408,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-145358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins-prospects","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115027740279113456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}