Penguins waive three players, cut two more as roster slowly comes into focus

The Penguins have begun the process of waiving a few players. Forwards Marc Johnstone, Jimmy Huntington and defenseman Mac Hollowell were among the names around the league that hit the waiver wire today.

We’ll find out tomorrow at 2pm if they clear (and likely they will). They can be assigned to the AHL at that point, where all are expected to be roster players for Wilkes-Barre this season.

Additionally, the final two players remaining in NHL camp on AHL only contracts have been assigned to Wilkes.

The Pens still have upwards of 40 players on their roster and the regular season is only a week away. But now the the exhibition schedule of games is nearly over (two games with Columbus remain, tomorrow and Friday) and the team will start making heavy cuts in the next few days in order to get down to the limits of 23 healthy players.

Once the three cuts are made the roster will look like this. One star denotes waivers will be needed for AHL assignment for potential cuts, two stars for injured reserve candidates. Players in bold were ones that practiced with the NHL-caliber club today

NHL Contracts: Noel Acciari, Corey Andonovski, Anthony Beauviller, Emil Bemstrom*, Tristan Broz, Michael Bunting, Sidney Crosby, Lars Eller, Cody Glass, Jonathan Gruden*, Kevin Hayes, Boko Imama*, Joona Koppanen*, Ville Koivunen, Blake Lizotte**, Evgeni Malkin, Rutger McGroarty, Matt Nieto**, Drew O’Connor, Vasily Ponomarev, Sam Poulin*, Jesse Puljujarvi*, Valtteri Puustinen*, Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust

Defense (13)

NHL Contracts: Sebastian Aho, Harrison Brunicke, Nathan Clurman*, Ryan Graves, Matt Grzelcyk, Erik Karlsson, Filip Kral*, Kris Letang, John Ludvig*, Marcus Pettersson, Owen Pickering, Ryan Shea*, Jack St. Ivany

Goalies (4)

NHL Contracts: Joel Blomqvist, Tristan Jarry, Filip Larsson, Alex Nedeljkovic**

There are also a couple of injured players in flux. Goalie Taylor Gauthier has not been officially marked out of NHL camp, but was seen earlier this week on the ice in Wilkes-Barre, so for the purpose of our list, he’s not included. Same for injured forwards Jagger Joshua and Beau Jelsma, who are in Pittsburgh still solely due to health statuses.

Puustinen looked to be the beneficiary of Bryan Rust being held out of practice for a maintenance day, skating on a line with Lars Eller and Jesse Puljujarvi. With Blake Lizotte out with a concussion, Kevin Hayes shifted back to the center position on the fourth line playing with Acciari and a rotations of Glass/McGroarty. McGroarty took part in PK work.

Defensively, rookie sensation Harrison Brunicke was practicing with Ryan Graves. Jack St. Ivany worked with Marcus Pettersson.

We’ll see how morning skates go tomorrow, but for the road game in Columbus expect the Pens to use mostly the un-bold players above to get through that. Then the team will likely have close to a dress rehearsal type of game at home for the final preseason game Friday night with most of their NHL talent in bold. How players like Glass, McGroarty, Puustinen and Brunicke fit into the Friday night lineup might be telling for the eventual decisions still to be made for the bottom of the spots coming out of camp.