The annual Prospects Challenge ended for the Penguins today in Buffalo with a game against the home Buffalo Sabres.
The Penguins stack the deck and load up with about the best team and combinations that they can assemble.
Ville Koivunen – Ben Kindel – Avery Hayes
Ryan Miller – Tristan Broz – Atley Calvert
Brayden Edwards – Gabe Klassen – Jordan Charron
Kale Dach – Nolan Renwick – Travis Hayes
Owen Pickering / Harrison Brunicke
Daniel Laatsch / Finn Harding
Chase Pietila / Quinn Beauchesne
Sergei Murashov is in net
That made forwards Max Graham and Carter Sanderson the scratches, along with defenders Brady Peddle and Emil Pieniniemi.
Buffalo scored early on, and then who else but Avery Hayes answered for the Penguins to make it a 1-1 game early.
The Sabres carried the play for most of the first period, but then the Pens took advantage of an opportunity when Pickering got tripped to earn a Pittsburgh power play. It was over quickly, Tristan Broz deked to his backhand from in front of the net and tucked it in to push the Pens in front 2-1 late in the first.
The Pens’ first line had a dominant shift to tire out the Buffalo players, and Pittsburgh was able to get a line change to keep up the pressure. That caused another Buffalo tripped penalty and the Pens quickly jump on it. Brunicke made a great crossing pass to Ben Kindel, who hammered a shot. The puck might have been trickling over the goal line anyways as it leaked through the Buffalo goalie but Broz was there on the back door to slam it in and make sure. 3-1 Pens.
Kindel continued his run of good play by sneaking a puck in behind the goalie and just over the line. Play barely stopped before the refs could make the goal call. 4-1 Pens. Buffalo shrugged that off and got a goal on the rush to bring it back to 4-2 quickly.
Buffalo starts the third period with a goal from former Penguin prospect Isaac Belliveau (traded to Buffalo in the Conor Timmins/Connor Clifton deal) to bring the Sabres within a goal at 4-3.
Pickering turned the puck over in the offensive zone and Brunicke wasn’t back to cover, leading to a breakaway for 2024 first round pick Konsta Helenius. Luckily he was at the end of his shift and didn’t have much gas left and Murashov stopped a backhand try.
The Pens get an insurance goal with 13:40 to go. Jordan Charron did well to cover a point while the pressure/rotations were underway and he kept his head up to feed Quinn Beauchesne on the right side. Beauchesne slapped a hard low shot in to extend the lead to 5-3.
Brunicke took a cross-checking penalty but Murashov bailed the team out with a huge save from point blank range.
After a quiet game, Ville Koivunen popped up with the puck on his stick off the left side that he centered for Kindel. Kindel might not have used his stick when it bounced off him somewhere and jumped in the net. Counts either way. 6-3, Pens start to pull away and run the time out.
Some more side thoughts and observations to put a bow on the final game.
- It might be a function of timing for getting back in gear, but Buffalo was definitely the most talented team the Pens played in the short event. They had plenty of former high picks and moved the puck well accordingly. Murashov saw seven shots in the first half of the first period alone (compared to seeing 11 shots in 30 minutes in his first action against Boston). Lots of tests and quality looks thrown at him, and as expected, Murashov handled it very well overall. A few goals against, but nothing terrible and he made more than his fair share of great stops to put the team in position to win.
- Broz and Hayes getting praise is an ever-green comment for these recaps, but it keeps happening so to phrase it in a new way if you’re Kirk MacDonald you have to be thrilled about how they’re looking for the start of the AHL season. How long they might be there, however, could be a problem for MacDonald, those two are approaching graduation from the lower/development levels.
- Kindel really shined in this one with a four point game (2G+2A). Flashes of why he was a top pick with his work on the power play was there again, a second similar note for him in as many days as such with his puck touches and ability on that left point looking pretty darn good. Kindel started out quietly in Friday’s game but showed noticeable improvement with each passing game. Encouraging to see that kind of progress going into his first NHL camp. He’ll need more development time but the signs he could be a quality player popped up more as the event went on; like using that confidence boost from the power play to score his first goal of the event later in the second period and by the third period he was back-checking and stealing the puck off a rushing opponent’s stick like he did in many of his highlight reels from junior and then scoring again in the third period.
- It’s always worth weighing how high the bar is set or just how much to nitpick for the top-end players in this particular event, but I didn’t like the games for Brunicke or Pickering today. At least as much as some of their earlier showings in this event. Brunicke doesn’t utilize teammates enough at this level, he takes too much upon himself and needs to learn to look to distributing more rather than working the puck by himself when he gets deep into the o-zone. He also was lax getting trapped in deep several times and ended up in the penalty box more times in the last 24 hours (for this game and last) a bit more than he probably wanted to. Some of Pickering’s lateral movements and cuts when he has to make quick change of direction were lacking. Granted, on a September noon game isn’t when a player needs to be at his very best, but Pickering’s skating, pace and ability to keep up will be questions to watch how he answers over the course of NHL camp. It wasn’t the best lasting performance, but again, it’s probably nothing to put much stock in today either.
- Brunicke was good at blocking shots, and both were fine on the penalty kill, it was far from a “bad” game for either but at the same time it wasn’t maybe as exemplary as one would hope/want either.
That wraps up another prospects trip to Buffalo, now gears shift and focus turns to the big boys getting on the ice officially later in the week.
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