With NHL Trade Deadline Approaching, Keep Eyes On Penguins’ Farm System

With the NHL trade deadline fast-approaching on Mar. 7, the Pittsburgh Penguins figure to be an active participant.

And with the team already embarked on a three-game Western road trip that extends beyond Friday’s deadline, the prime place to look for clues, hints, and tip-offs to potential deals won’t necessarily be from an NHL standpoint.

Instead, fans should be looking to the Penguins’ farm system.

No, it’s not because there will be Penguins’ prospects available for the taking, or, at least, not too many of them. For the first time in a long time, the Penguins figure to be very active sellers by Friday, as they currently find themselves just four points out of the basement in the Eastern Conference and are actively attempting to execute a rebuild on-the-fly.

Given that the NHL team is in the midst of the road trip, any recall from WBS would have to be pre-planned in order to get a player with the NHL team in time in the event of a trade. So, in order to field a full roster for a game in that scenario, they’ll need reinforcements in quick order.

But – being that they’re in the West – they’ll basically need those reinforcements on standby. Therefore, it will be key to keep an eye on transactions and lineups in WBS, and even in Wheeling, Pittsburgh’s ECHL affiliate.

For example, there was a transaction inciting a bit of a reaction on Tuesday, as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) Penguins – Pittsburgh’s AHL affiliate – recalled top goaltending prospect Sergei Murashov from the ECHL, meaning the AHL team is currently carrying three goaltenders: Murashov, Joel Blomqvist, and Filip Larsson.

Unless either Blomqvist or Larsson is being re-assigned to the ECHL – highly unlikely – this is an interesting move. It probably means that there is either a corresponding move to place an AHL or NHL goaltender on injured reserve or a trade in the works involving a goaltender.

Murashov has certainly earned his right to play at the AHL level this season – the 20-year-old Russian netminder has a .934 save percentage in the AHL and a .922 save percentage in the ECHL this season – and Blomqvist was just re-assigned to the AHL from the Penguins.

Therefore, it seems likely that this is a precursor to another move. And this is a great example of why keeping an eye on the farm system over the next few days will be so important.

As mentioned before, this goes for lineups as well. The WBS Penguins play Belleville Tuesday night. In addition to taking note of which goaltender is scratched for that game, if someone like forwards Vasily Ponomarev, Sam Poulin, or Matt Nieto – or defenseman Owen Pickering – is left out of the lineup, it may be something to take note of.

And this is especially true when considering which Penguins players figure to be on the trade block: players like defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, forward Anthony Beauvillier, and goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.

All in all, as Penguins fans ferociously refresh their feeds in search of trade news leading up to Friday, keeping a watchful eye on the movement in Pittsburgh’s farm system may be one of the best ways to measure whether or not a trade is on its way.

So, buckle up. Things are about to get pretty interesting.

Bookmark THN – Pittsburgh Penguins on your Google News tab  to follow the latest Penguins news, roster moves, player features, and more!