Sam Poulin: Video Scouting Report of Penguins 1st Round Pick

Sam Poulin is the first and, unless something changes in the 2020 NHL offseason, will be the only Pittsburgh Penguins first-round draft pick in the prospect system. The Penguins have other first-round picks in the organization, including defenseman PO Joseph who completed his first professional season in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Still, Poulin represents the only time in GM Jim Rutherford’s five-plus year tenure the Penguins kept their first rounder.

The move to keep the pick, despite tempting offers looks pretty, pretty good. Poulin used up a few ink cartridges on the Sherbrooke Phoenix stat sheets. In mid-January, the 6-foot-1, 208-pound LW laid waste to his QMJHL competition. He had five straight three-point games and two hat tricks. He was back-to-back QMHJL Player-of-the-Week honors with 19 points (10g, 9) in that five-game span.

Yeah, Poulin was a man amongst boys.

PHN chose a random game after Poulin’s hot streak to get a real sense of his game and his progress. We analyzed his game a few times throughout the Prospects Challenge and the Pittsburgh Penguins training camp in September.

If you’re not the type to click on the links above for some syllabus reading (feel free to click on several ads, though), our summary of Poulin was he had a surprisingly complete game without as much physicality as we expected, but with more responsibility and game awareness.

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The Poulin Analysis & Video