The Penguins are at a crossroads with some of the young players pushing for NHL roster spots, and they need to take action in deserving cases
Well, the Pittsburgh Penguins are down to their final pre-season game, and given that Friday's practice has been narrowed down to one session - and the AHL opens its pre-season on Saturday - it's safe to assume that yet another small wave of roster cuts is coming in the next 24 hours.
Not every prospect will be cut quite yet, as injuries and veteran rules for the pre-season have resulted in necessity to keep a few extra bodies for the team's final pre-season tilt against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
However, when the rest of the roster is trimmed down to 23 or less, there is one name that absolutely deserves to be left on it.
And that's defenseman Owen Pickering.
Pickering, 22, has been put through the wringer in the past 24 months. After an impressive start to the 2024-25 season, his play began to wane a little bit, and he was ultimately sent back down to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) Penguins after 25 games. He was called on again after an early-season injury to Caleb Jones last season, but he only stayed for four games after a less-than-ideal showing.
He didn't see another NHL game during the 2025-26 season, but by all accounts - including the accounts of GM Kyle Dubas, director of player development Tom Kostopoulos, and WBS assistant GM Amanda Kessel - Pickering experienced substantial growth in the latter half of the AHL season. He developed more consistency in his game and finally became the steady, shutdown blueliner the organization hoped he would be. This continued into the Calder Cup Playoffs, when he played on an injured foot.
Pickering finished the AHL season with seven goals and 28 points - as well as a plus-16 - in 68 regular season games, and he got better and better as the season progressed and the stakes rose.
So, he came into training camp this season with the same purpose as everyone else in the locker room: To earn a spot on the NHL roster. After all, Dubas has said in the past that young guys would have to earn spots but that veterans would also have to earn keeping them.
"If [the young guys] continue to push all the way - and it's very clear that they should be on the team - they'll make the team, and we'll deal with whatever the ripple effects of those are on some of the more veteran guys," Dubas said in his pre-season press conference prior to the 2025-26 season.
In that same presser, he added: "The message to the veteran guys is that, with where we're at, the young guys are coming, they're going to get opportunity, they're going to have to earn everything... but it's been very clear to them what the expectation is. And it's up to them to hold onto their jobs and hold onto their spots and their places with the Penguins and in the NHL."
Flash forward a year later, and Pickering has certainly earned it with his camp.
Not only does he look like a different player than the one who stepped foot into camp last season, he looks confident and poised. He's finally learned how to utilize his 6-foot-5, 213-pound frame to his advantage, using his long reach to disrupt plays and being hard to move at the net-front and in positional battles along the walls and in mid-ice.
His skating has vastly improved, and he actually looks relatively fast out there. His gap control is remarkably better, as is his defensive posture. He's making the right decisions. He's making good defensive reads. He knows when to join the play and when to stay back. He's not getting beat to pucks nor beat in many puck battles.
By almost all accounts, he looks NHL-ready right now. Even if Harrison Brunicke - his regular defense partner this pre-season - has had a nice camp, Pickering has had a better one.
Kaedan Korczak has looked perfectly fine in game action and in practices. Pickering has looked better.
Declan Carlile has shown his knack for physicality, which is a good trait to have, and he's been good defensively in his one pre-season game and alongside Erik Karlsson in practices. Pickering, though, has been better all-around.
Ilya Solovyov has put together a great camp, has improved his footspeed marginally, and excels on breakouts and in defensive positioning as usual. Pickering has, at least, equaled his camp.
And herein lies the problem: Pickering has outperformed presumed NHL regulars during this camp, even if the others have been fine. He has made himself stand out among them. But, there is a decent chance he will not be on this roster, barring injuries, when the season opens against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sept. 30.
Even assistant GM Jason Spezza's words regarding the youth push at the dawn of this year's camp sounded a fair bit different than Dubas's words one year ago — even if prospects like Pickering are a year older and a year better.
"What we would love to see is for the young guys to really push their way in," Spezza said on Sept. 18. "Everybody always wants finality at the end of training camp, that, 'This is the team. This is what it's going to be all year.' And I think there's going to be plenty of opportunity for young guys to establish themselves as NHL players as the year goes on. Whether that's on opening day or not, that will kind of sort itself out here over the next couple of weeks.
"We know we want to inject youth into the lineup. We know we have to. But, we have to make sure we do it when the guys are ready and when they're going to help the team."
Well, it appears a guy has proven he's ready, he's deserving, and that his play will probably help the team. So, what's next? What happens when a guy like Pickering - who happens to be waivers-exempt and who happens to be glued to Brunicke as if they're bound for the top pairing in WBS - exceeds expectations and outplays some of the guys who are supposed to be on the roster?
Yes, situations change. At this time last year, the Penguins were talking about rebuilding, not about making the playoffs again. Sure, it's not the worst thing in the world if Pickering and Brunicke begin the season in the AHL, getting top-pairing minutes, being deployed in key situations, and setting themselves up to be the first call-ups when injuries inevitably occur. No, the training camp roster is not the whole-year roster, and Pickering will most certainly have some opportunities this season. Exercising patience is equally as important as showing urgency with development.
But that's not the issue here. The problem is the precedent it sets for Pickering and the rest of the young players who truly do earn spots but fail to make the team: If they put everything they have on the line, perform at a high level, and are told they can earn or overtake spots but then don't get rewarded by actually securing those spots, what is the point of all of it?
Yes, players have to earn their spots, and yes, they have to overtake NHL players and placeholders in order to do so. But, if and when they actually do it, it's important for their development and for their psyche to be rewarded for those efforts. It's one thing to hand players spots when they haven't necessarily taken them with authority, but it's another thing to prevent deserving players from the NHL roster because of logistics like contracts, acquisition cost, NHL seniority, and waivers eligibility.
Because, if they're not rewarded - and that starts to become a theme - that could foster frustration and feelings of resentment, which is not something you want from your more promising young talent. The worst possible outcome for this organization is the possibility of deserving younger players wanting out because they don't feel they have a legitimate path.
Not every young player has been good enough in this year's training camp to force the organization's hand and actually take an opportunity. But Pickering has earned a spot on the NHL roster this season - from the start - because his performance has said so. The Penguins have an opportunity to show their young players that the door is, in fact, open to them if they actually go out and accomplish the tall task of stripping a spot in the NHL lineup from someone else.
With Pickering, let's see if they take it. If they don't, the potential ripple effects for other cases of similarity might leave a sour taste in the mouths of the very players the future of the franchise is supposed to start with.
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