(upbeat music) - Hello everybody and welcome to the Tip of the Iceberg podcast, your home for Pittsburgh Penguins, news and analysis. You can find us on YouTube at Tip of the Iceberg or anywhere you get your podcast from. I'm your host, Nick Belsky and because of the fact that it is the Monday before the start of the 2024-25 season, we finally have a roster. The Penguins announced earlier today 22 names that will be beginning the season at the NHL level. We'll talk about all of those names, where they stand, some of the surprises on this roster and even a projected opening night lineup. But before we get into that, we got to talk about a couple of players that are going to start the season on injured reserve. We're gonna talk about a couple of the more notable moves that happened in the weekend leading up to this announcement and we're really just gonna overall talk about the outlook for the Pittsburgh Penguins heading into this season with the opener just two days away. Let's start off by discussing those four players, as you can see on the screen, that are starting the season on injured reserve. The one that is the most expected and the least surprising is Matt Nieto. With that knee injury, he is on long-term, injured reserve, which is where everybody expected him to start the season. His return is slated for November to December. But again, a player that has yet to play after having about a year off and multiple knee surgeries, his return is certainly in question as to when that could happen, but starts the season on long-term injured reserve. Then there's the three players that were injured during the preseason. Blake Lazott is on injured reserve and a concussion. He was hitting the head during the Kraft Hockeyville game up in Sudbury. He has yet to return to the ice when it comes to skating with the team in practice, but we'll have to wait and see where that is. Obviously, concussions are very difficult to judge when it comes to timetable up on return. So Lazott begins the year on injured reserve. So two does forward Brian Rust, who went down last week during one of the preseason games with a lower body injury. He is as of right now considered day-to-day by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Now Kyle Dubas mentioned in his press conference earlier that him being on IR is retroactive to last Sunday. So he can be taken off of IR whenever they need him to, but as of right now, he starts the year on injured reserve. And the last name that will start the year on injured reserve is goaltender Alex Nadellkovich, who has a lower body injury as well. He is right now week to week with that lower body injury. So expect to see a lot of Joe Blancfist, who's a little spoiler alert, makes the roster and ends up being the backup to start the year for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The only other injury of note right now is Vasily Potomara, if he is considered non-roster injured. So, or injured non-roster, I think is the way that the correct way to put it, but he will start the season on the shelf as well. Before getting into the roster and the 22 players, I do want to mention a couple of notable moves that happened over the weekend before this announcement starting with John Ludwig, claimed off of waivers on Saturday by the Colorado Avalanche. A lot of people kind of up in arms about losing John Ludwig for nothing. And I guarantee you that the Pittsburgh Penguins are not happy to lose a depth defenseman for absolutely nothing on the waiver wire. But whenever you look at how he was performing, whenever you look at where his standing is in the organization, it should come as no surprise that he was a player that was decidedly put on waivers on Friday, Colorado wanted a little bit more grit, little bit more grind. They go out and they pick up John Ludwig. It is unfortunate. I know a lot of people are upset, but I think the one thing that Ludwig struggled with the most was actually settling in and being a consistent player in the defensive zone, being able to bring that defensive steadiness to the bottom of the Penguins lineup. So with those struggles, I think it was all but certain that he was going to end up on waivers, unfortunate for the Penguins that the Colorado Avalanche decided to take him. And going into the year, you could probably argue he was the eighth to 10th best defenseman that the Penguins had, but at the same time, obviously attrition is a big part of the NHL season. 82 games is a very long year. So you would have liked to have John Ludwig stashed away in case of emergency. They will just not have that luxury going into the season. Another surprise when it comes to waivers, Sebastian Ajo, he was signed to a two year contract this summer. So I think a lot of us, myself included, automatically penciled him in to be that Chad Ruwiedel replacement, that seventh defenseman that comes in when needed, brings in some experience and can be a decent spot on your bottom pairing there. And a guy that could be that number seven guy, who you just hope that whenever he comes in, he plays as if he hasn't missed a beat. He ends up being put on waivers. He ends up clearing waivers. And he'll start the year with the Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins again, one that I was not overly impressed with Sebastian Ajo's performance during the preseason. But I just figured with the two year contract and the fact that all things were equal in my eyes between him and Ryan Shea, I think Ajo made more mistakes than Ryan Shea did, but their defensive game was, I thought, at the very same level. I thought that all things being equal, Sebastian Ajo would have earned that seventh defenseman spot over Shea. But instead, Ajo goes down through waivers and Ryan Shea remains with the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second consecutive season to start the year. And the last move that was made pre-announcement, the very last move that was made right before this announcement, the Penguins reassigned defenseman Harrison Brunick to the WHL's Kam Loops Blazers. The 18 year old took Pittsburgh by Storm over this past week. He was terrific. All preseason long, and there were many who believed that maybe the Penguins give him that nine game sample size. And I think if Eric Carlson was not gonna be prepared to start this season, I think you would have seen Harrison Brunick start the year at the NHL level and start the year with that little cup of coffee at the NHL level before being sent back. But I think this was the end game all along. I didn't expect Harrison Brunick to be at the NHL level for the full 82 because if that's, if they would have kept him past that nine game sample, if he would have played game 10, he can't play in the American Hockey League. He would have had to stay at the National Hockey League all season long. It just feels like there was not gonna be room for that. But there was room for him to potentially have that nine game sample. Penguins decide that Carlson is good to go for Wednesday. At least that's what they're expecting to be the case and considering his practice participation over the last week, I would assume that he is good to go by the start of the season on Wednesday night. So with that in mind, Harrison Brunick ends up being reassigned to Kamloops. Let's get into the roster. Seven minutes into this one. Let's talk about who made the roster instead of who's not on the roster to start the 2024-25 season. And let's start with the forward side of things. I'm gonna break the 13 forwards that made the roster down into three groups. There's the top six guys, the bottom six locks, and then the rest of the guys, which we'll have a little bit of a deeper discussion about. Let's start with the top six. These guys were locks, we knew they were gonna make it, and we knew they were gonna start the year in the top six. Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin, Drew O'Connor, Michael Bunting, and Ricardo Cow. Shocked, I know, but all the five of those guys make the roster. I'll throw Anthony Beauvilla into this, even though he wasn't really a lock to make the top six. He was a lock to make the roster and due to the injury to Brian Rust, you can expect him to be in the top six, come Wednesday evening. The bottom six locks, Lars Ehler, Nolichari, and Kevin Hayes. There were obviously discussions, myself included in those discussions, about whether or not the Penguins would think about trading. A guy like Lars Ehler or Nolichari, if there are takers around the league, because while they're flushed with center depth, they're flushed with forward depth, especially some young forward depth that has showed some promise over the last handful of weeks. But there was no trade made, so you shouldn't be surprised that Ehler, Chari, and Kevin Hayes all made this roster. And then there's the rest, and I couldn't think of a better name for the category, but then there's the rest. Let's just go with that and rock with it. Yes, Apolliarvi, who was the Penguins MVP this preseason. 20-year-old Rutger McGrordi makes the roster, which I had doubted here a couple of weeks ago, but he had earned an opportunity and earned a spot on the roster. Valteri Pustinan stays at the NHL level to begin this season, so too does former first round pick Cody Glass. So that's the 13 forwards. Puyarvi McGrordi, Pustinan, and Glass, I thought those four were all fighting for spots. I think it helps them that a guy like Blake Lazat is missing the beginning of the season on injured reserve. A guy like Brian Rust obviously being on injured reserve as well opens up a couple of opportunities, specifically for McGrordi and Valteri Pustinan. I think when you look at those four, yes, Apolliarvi, undoubtedly, had the best preseason of the four, and I think has the highest upside of the four at the beginning of this year. By the end of this year, I think Pustinan could take over that. I think McGrordi could take over that mantle, but of the four to start this season, the highest upside is with the former fourth overall pick in yes, Apolliarvi. This is a guy that came to the Penguins last year, signed a two-year contract, was trying to come back from that double hip resurfacing surgery, and you could tell last year, he didn't seem comfortable out on the ice, and he has said as much in multiple interviews since that day, but he comes into this year with a full, clean bill of health, maybe some residual effects still, because, I mean, you're 25 years old, you've gone through that many injuries, you're never gonna be as healthy as you were back in the day, but I think what we're seeing from yes, Apolliarvi is as close to fully healthy as he is gonna be, and he was really good. Like I mentioned, MVP of the preseason scored the most points in a preseason, I believe, since Jake Gensl back in 2019, so he lights the lamp, and that's the big thing for yes, Apolliarvi is, is he gonna be able to finish his opportunities? Is he gonna be able to set players up to finish opportunities, because we've always seen throughout his entire career that everything leading up to that opportunity, he does at an extremely high level. He uses his body well, his skating stride has looked tremendous this preseason. Is he gonna be able to finish? Well, in the preseason, that finish has looked gorgeous, looked no further than Friday's goal when he was in on a breakaway. I think he went forehand back in, and then pulled it back to forehand and went top shelf. He was absolutely astounding in the preseason, so it should come as no surprise. After watching that, that he ends up being on this roster. The other name I wanna talk about a little bit is Rutger Magordi. A couple of weeks back, I said my bold prediction was, Magordi starts the season in the American Hockey League. He's up by November 1st, and he spends the rest of the year at the National Hockey League. Well, injuries happen to both Rust and Lazat, and the opportunity arises for Rutger Magordi to make the NHL roster. Now, the Penguins, they gave him every opportunity to prove that he earned this role, and he earned this spot on the roster to start the season. And he lived up to it, right? I mean, Magordi was in Buffalo at the Prospects Challenge, and one of the best players on the ice, every single game at the Prospects Challenge. That's what you wanted to see from him, then. Comes into training camp. He's not automatically given those opportunities with Crosby. He's not automatically given those opportunities with Malkin. He is told to earn his keep, earn his role, and he did that from day one and just continued to build, and I think what you saw is some players, they start hot and they fade to the back to end the preseason. We saw it from Sam Poulan last season. We saw it from, trying to think of another example. We saw it from Villet Koivunin, who looked really good, or Tristan Bros, who looked really good early this preseason, and then they kind of faded back. Now, I think both of them still performed very well, but not at the high level that they were in Prospects Challenge and early on in those first two or three preseason games. Magordi was the opposite case. He looked good to start. He had his base, and he built day after day. He stacked days, and then he stacked weeks, and he stacked performances, until he had an amazing three-point performance on Friday night in the preseason finale for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He played in six of seven preseason games. For the pens, no other Penguin played that many games. The closest was, I believe, Cody Glass, who played in five and then a handful of players played in four, but Magordi was the guy that they wanted to give all those reps to. He took it, he ran with it, and in six preseason games, scored six points. One goal, five assists. Everybody that's listened to this show before knows how I feel about plus minus, but plus seven in six games is nothing to scoff at. So a tremendous preseason for Rucker Magordi and a tremendous opportunity. There were obviously the storylines of, he wanted to start the year in the NHL, and that's why he wanted out of Winnipeg. Well, now he's afforded the opportunity. He earned the opportunity to start the year at the NHL level. Can he take it? Can he run with it, and can he stick at the NHL level? That is gonna be the next conversation for Rucker Magordi. The Penguins are keeping seven defensemen, most of them, pretty obvious defensemen, pretty obvious names. Carlson, Chris Latang, Marcus Patterson, Matt Grislick, Ryan Graves, are the five that you knew coming into camp, that there was no way, shape, or form, that these guys weren't gonna be on the roster. The questions came with that third pairing, right side defensemen and seventh defensemen roles. The best player of everybody that was vying for those roles was Jackson Ivanne. The one problem was Jackson Ivanne was the only of those, one of those players that was Waver's exempt. So you had to ask the question, is Kyle Dubas gonna say, you know what? We'd rather make sure we keep these defensemen in-house in organization, and let's say in Ivanne start the year in the AHL, or do they just say, we'll take our chances if we lose a guy, we lose a guy, AKA John Ludwig, and we want the best foot forward, we want the best player in that position. And that was Jackson Ivanne. He's a guy who in the final 14 games of last season proved that he can hack it at the NHL level, and he's coming and he has been just as sturdy, if not even more impressive, in this training camp for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Again, it's training camp, we'll see if he's able to translate that into regular season success, but the way that his game is played, it travels, right? You hear that more so talking about, you know, NFL or college football teams, but his style of play, it travels. To pre-season to regular season, no matter who you're going up against, no matter where you're at, the environment you're in, his play style travels, it translates well, so I would have to imagine, and I'm very excited to see, that Jackson Ivanne gets off to a hot start this season. The other defensemen is Ryan Shea. Shea was a surprise addition to last year's roster, whenever the Penguins, I believe, had an eight or nine defensemen make the opening night roster and they only carried 12 forwards. This year, he had a little bit more of a pedigree to him because him and St. Ivanne are the two that clicked and connected down that stretch last season. But again, when I was looking at Shea, I thought, can he beat out a guy who just signed a two year contract in the off season? I thought that there was a high expectation for Sebastian Ajo coming in. Again, his performance wasn't great. Ryan Shea didn't do anything to wow anybody. He wasn't as steady as a Jackson Ivanne was, but he did enough to make the roster again. And at the end of the day, you have to give him credit where credits do. He officially takes the slot of the Chad Rueedle. Can he be that for the Pittsburgh Penguins moving forward? And then goal tenders, of course, Tristan Jari makes the roster in due to Alex and Velkovich's injury. So too does Joe Blunkfist, first time making an NHL roster out of camp. It's not his first time on the NHL roster during the regular season. Obviously he backed up late last season when there were injuries and illnesses at the goal tending room. He was a backup. He didn't get one second of ice time last year. He will get ice time this year. He will get some starts to begin the season with Alex and Velkovich being on the shelf. So that's the roster right there. 13 forward, seven defense men, two goal tenders. They start the year with 22 spots of the 23 available field. I like the opening night roster. I like the infusion of youth for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Guys like Magruder at the age of 20. I liked that up until literally the last second people were making the argument for Harrison Brunick at the age of 18 years old. So I'm excited about this season. I think the Penguins have very interesting expectations going into this year. There's a lot on the outside looking in that are saying they are nowhere close to a playoff team. There are some like me that say they're probably a bubble playoff team and there are some probably within the building that believe they are destined for more. So we'll see how they look on Wednesday against the New York Rangers team that is expected to be in the top three of the Metropolitan Division this year. But what will the lineup look like whenever they go out there on Wednesday night? Well, based on practice today, we can have a pretty decent assumption of what it could look like. And if you're watching us live or not live, excuse me, but if you're watching us on tip of the iceberg on YouTube, you can see it being pulled up here on the graphic. It's looking like O'Connor Crosby Beauvillais is your top line again. Drew O'Connor is a guy who proved that he could play up there late last season. So I'm excited to see if that carries over to this year. Anthony Beauvillais is an interesting name. I don't know if I'm gonna ever get used to watching somebody who's that small where the number 72, no offense Beauvillais, but just feels like there should be a certain Viking wearing that number. But Beauvillais at number 72, he's gonna be out there with Sydney Crosby the most likely second line is exactly as it finished last year. Michael Bunting, Evgeny Malkin and Ricardo Kelle. And then the bottom six is a carbon copy of what we saw in that final dress rehearsal on Friday. Rucker McGraugherty, Lars Ehler, Yesapul Jarvey with Valtteri Pustin and rotating in. That's what they had at practice. I would imagine it's McGraugherty, Ehler and Poole Jarvey, they're gonna wanna see, excuse me, if they can recapture that magic that they had on Friday. And then Kevin Hayes, Cody Glass and Nolichari as your fourth line, a nice mix between offensive capabilities and defensive steadiness on that fourth line. I'm intrigued to see how that pans out. And then the defense is as most predicted it to be, Pedersen Carlson, Matt Grizzlick, Chris Latang, Ryan Graves and Jack St. Ivany, Ryan Shane, Valtteri Pustin, the extra skaters. And you would have to imagine that Tristan Jari starts and Joelle Blungfist backs up. But that is gonna do it for this episode of The Tip of the Iceberg. The Penguins unveil their opening night roster, a couple of surprises, a couple of interesting names, but it all begins on Wednesday. But before Wednesday, make sure you check out an all new episode of The Tip of the Iceberg tomorrow with Pittsburgh Penguins radio play-by-play announcer Joe Brand. We welcomed him to Pittsburgh. We got his initial thoughts on the Penguins. And of course, we asked him about what he has seen over the last couple of weeks of training camp. So make sure you tune in for that tomorrow. But that is it for this episode. Make sure you follow us on YouTube at Tip of the Iceberg, Like, Share, Subscribe, all that fun stuff. Or you can find us anywhere. You get your podcasts from. We'll see you guys next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
