Penguins Prospects Humbled; How They Reacted

It was a humbling experience though a good pushback in the third period and few goals by Jesse Puljujarvi kept it from becoming humiliating. The Pittsburgh Penguins prospects got their first experience facing legitimate NHL players when the Buffalo Sabres quickly dispatched the Penguins 7-3 Saturday in the first preseason game for both teams.

Buffalo dressed their best players while the Penguins sent depth players, prospects, and two NHL regulars, Drew O’Connor and Ryan Graves.

Penguins goalie Joel Blomqvist was roughed up for five goals in under five minutes at the start of the second period. But most of the shots were from a longer distance, and a few should have been stopped.

How Blomqvist responds to his shellacking will be crucial to his development. Goalies and confidence need to be best friends. However, Blomqvist wasn’t the only prospect to find the deep seas of NHL competition to be rough. Indeed, the boys had a rough night.

“I’ve been through it and so the thing is to just work on your next shift. Try to leave things in the past and try to show that you belong here,” NHL veteran Cody Glass told PHN. “It’s hard. It’s your first game, maybe, so it’s a learning experience for sure. But I thought everybody in here pounded really well.”

Pounded is a new term for us, but the team didn’t give up and continued to push back despite the lopsided score.

Rutger McGroarty was the best of the Penguins’ prospects Saturday. While Broz had a pair of secondary assists, McGroarty had a far more noticeable impact, which echoed coach Mike Sullivan’s favorite word over the past week when answering queries about what he wants to see from various players in order to make the team.

Sullivan’s answer has remained consistent over the first week of training camp–if the player wants to make the team, he must “make an impact.”

McGroarty, 21, was able to walk away from Saturday with some positives, even if he got a few hard lessons in the defensive zone. For that matter, everyone got a spoonful of castor oil in the defensive zone.

“I would say just defensively, I feel like that’s definitely what I need to focus on. Inn the O-zone, I got a couple of pucks,” McGroarty said. “I feel like I was good on the forecheck. I made some nice plays, but defensively, I feel like I was running around a little bit. So it’s definitely something I have to work on.”

The upside is that the Penguins have talented players who figure to make their NHL debuts sooner or later with the caliber of players who taught them a lesson. Tristan Broz has been the prospect unshy about sharing his disdain for losing. He was a little sour after his team lost the Development Camp tournament championship. He was politely surly in the first week of camp when his squad lost.

Broz’s attitude Saturday was one that would serve the rest of the newbies well.

“I feel like I learned a lot in that game. It’s a really cool experience–obviously sucks to lose, but fun to play against those guys,” Broz said. And I definitely feel like I can make a career in this league and it’s going to take a lot of hard work. Yeah, I’m excited.”