CRANBERRY — Tristan Broz and Harrison Brunicke were drafted three years apart and by different regimes, but both Pittsburgh Penguins second-round picks appear poised to make waves in the Penguins’ prospect pool.

Brunicke was the Penguins’ first of two second-round picks in 2024 (44th overall), and despite long odds, the defenseman nearly made the NHL team out of training camp last season and has done nothing in this year’s Development Camp to show that he’s regressed.

The PHN analysis has been favorable to the right-shot defenseman. In fact, the one thing keeping him from the Penguins’ lineup might be space. Currently, the team has at least three right-shot defensemen ahead of him on the depth chart, including the newly acquired Connor Clifton.

Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson are the other two D-men already on the NHL roster, and even as Karlsson’s name appears weekly in the NHL trade rumors, his hefty $10 million salary cap hit and subpar performance last season complicate any deals.

Yet, Brunicke has zipped around his fellow prospects on the ice as easily as he leaped ahead of professional defensemen last fall. While Brunicke can’t turn pro this season unless he makes the NHL roster (and only the NHL roster), he has proven to be a quick study.

“Getting to play in those four or five preseason games really helped my development,” Brunicke told PHN. “And also going to Wilkes at the end year, I thought that was really good for me–just to get a taste of pro hockey. You know, I’m not going to lie, the first couple of games were definitely hard to adjust to, but once you kind of figured it out, I thought I was playing some of my best hockey.”

He played 10 games for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins last season following the conclusion of his juniors season, registering just two assists. And he’s correct. The first few games did not go so well, but by the playoffs, he was the best defenseman on the ice and scored the biggest goal of the WBS’s season before the team gave up a late goal to lose a deciding playoff game.

The 6-foot-3, 202-pound blue liner is also learning an important lesson for defensemen: Sometimes, doing less is more.

“The goal he scored in the playoffs was outstanding. I thought his ability to kill plays–the less he does in certain areas, the more he accomplishes,” said WBS coach Kirk MacDonald. “(He accomplishes more) just by making a really good first pass and then activating and jumping in the rush.”

For those who have attended the Development Camp, Brunicke’s agile skating and acceleration have been immediately noticeable. During crowded center ice drills on Sunday, he skated around players backward and forward, finding passing lanes and keeping the puck despite tight pressure.

Brunicke has already learned a couple of the hard lessons, and he’s showing them off at camp.

“He figured it out quick. He came in initially (and had to overcome) juniors habits, where you can just skate by people and hold onto the puck for a long time–I thought he did a really good job,” said MacDonald. “The last couple of regular season games and the playoff stint, he was moving pucks quick, jumping in the rush.”

If the Penguins have space, Brunicke looks like a steal for a second-rounder, and Penguins fans might very well get a good look at him in October.

Tristan Broz

Once Broz, 22, was properly cast, his career took off. He was a bottom-line winger for the University of Denver in the 2023-24 season, his final collegiate campaign. Things were not going well for the 2021 second-rounder, drafted by former GM Ron Hextall with the team’s first selection in the draft.

Then, team injuries created opportunity, and Broz was moved to center by coach David Carle in the middle of the season. By the end of the year, Broz had scored a couple of overtime goals in the NCAA tournament, and Denver won the national championship. Riding the wave of momentum that carried him from Denver to a couple of playoff games with WBS to turning pro, Broz hit the ground running with WBS last season.

MacDonald seemed to hint that the expectation is for Broz to start the year in the AHL, but big things are expected soon.

“I think he’s going to have a huge year for us. I think a big thing to remember is he has only played center basically for a year and a half. And he’s done a great job with it. His reads are really good. I think he’s gonna take a bigger role in our penalty kill, assuming he’s with us,” MacDonald said. “I know he’s coming (to Pittsburgh) with the goal to play (in Pittsburgh), but from that standpoint, I think there’s an opportunity for him to have a big role this year and then knock on the door. Because I really thought before he got mono, he was gonna play up here this year. He was outstanding for us … I know he’s probably training his ass off right now to be ready to go for September.”

Misfortune caught Broz last winter, and he missed weeks in the middle of the season due to mono. No skating, no working out, just weathering the storm until he could return. Even then, it took a few weeks or more to hit his full stride.

Broz has aged out of the Development Camp and is not in Cranberry this week. However, MacDonald’s swift and earnest praise quickly exceeded the usual public pat on the back for players. When discussing how well Broz was playing before illness, MacDonald’s head shook and his voice changed, both conveying amazement.

Indeed, the Penguins’ NHL roster is stocked with NHL forwards. More than they keep, actually. A rough count of players who will be fighting for an NHL roster spot is 18, including depth players such as Joona Koppanen and newly signed Rafael Harvey-Pinard.

That number does not include Broz, though even Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas indicated last April that he intended to call up Broz but did not because he felt the Penguins’ situation was not advantageous for the player.

Could Broz’s shifty skating and surprisingly slick hands claim a middle-six center spot? In 59 AHL games, he had 19 goals and 37 points, but a dozen or so of those games were spent trying to get back into shape after being wiped out by the illness. Broz also had three points (2-1-3) in two playoff games.

While the attention over the past several days has focused on 2025 first-round picks Ben Kindel, Bill Zonnon, and Will Horcoff, it’s a pair of second-rounders who are up next in the Penguins’ rebuild.