Where are Rutger McGroarty, Ville Koivunen, Tristan Broz, and Owen Pickering? Avery Hayes and Sergei Murashov, too.

The Pittsburgh Penguins‘ season of transition to the next chapter has well exceeded what might be considered a pleasant surprise. A cast of no-name defensemen and forgotten forwards has eclipsed what anyone thought possible. Currently, they have over an 85% chance of making the playoffs with just 26 games remaining in their 2025-26 NHL regular season.

Several teams chasing the Penguins for those valued playoff spots have even fewer games remaining.

While the state of the Penguins is strong, this transitional phase has unexpectedly parked the Penguins’ rookies, though not because of coaching error or choice, and not because of the general manager’s discretion.

No, the Penguins lead the NHL with 12 rookies playing for the team this season, but only two, Ben Kindel and Arturs Silovs, remain regular contributors. because the others didn’t seize their opportunities, essentially forcing their way into the lineup as Kindel has done.

Welcome to the ups and downs…and downs of a rebuild. This is the very reason that teams such as the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, and Anaheim Ducks have languished in hockey purgatory since Barack Obama was president, since most people still had cable TV, and before league-driven streaming services weren’t a gouging oligopoly of confusion with local streamers, national rights holders, and overly enriched package shippers.

Not every prospect hits. Not even the ones who show such promise and ability.

Player development is rarely a straight line, and that line is seldom a straight incline. Kindel excluded, of course.

And the Penguins have somewhat reluctantly had to reassign some young players with high hopes back to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

Koivunen, 22, had the longest leash of the bunch, but not being strong on his skates or consistently effective and defaulting to a perimeter game earned him a trip to WBS. Koivunen had five points (2-3-5) in 27 games despite getting playing time with Sidney Crosby and almost exclusively in top-nine roles.

McGroarty, 21, has played solidly, but hasn’t forced printing machines to waste enough ink on the scoresheet. In 20 games, McGroarty also has five points (2-3-5), and has earned a bit of his frustration as glorious scoring chances were marked in the save column, not the scoring log. He, too, will likely remain in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton following the Olympic break unless injuries require his presence.

Pickering, the 2022 first-round pick, played too cautiously in preseason, earning him a ride to WBS, and then did little with his four-game NHL chance, playing tepidly before the team decided to give Ryan Graves a second chance.

Hayes, 23, is the unheralded and undrafted scrapper who made a big impression in the final game against the Buffalo Sabres before the break, scoring two goals as a result of relentless puck pursuit and speed. Unlike the others, he grabbed his chance, but it was only one game.

Hayes very well might have vaulted to the top of the list as the next call-up. He made that big of an impression on the organization. Coach Dan Muse smiled broadly and shook his head when discussing Hayes, both on and off the record.

Broz, 23, was only given one game, played acceptably well, but hasn’t been seen since his NHL debut. He seems caught in a numbers game and isn’t an option until the team needs a center.

That none of the youngsters have yet established themselves is something of a worry. Or at least it should be. The Penguins’ next phase rests on several of the current rookies taking regular NHL shifts sooner or later. That is the very reason Dubas signed bargain free agents and offered only one and two-year deals.

Players like Justin Brazeau and Parker Wotherspoon are generally seat warmers for a team in transition, but instead, they have seized their chances.

The Penguins’ pipeline has plenty of players with NHL projections beyond the players who haven’t yet claimed their spots. 2025 first-round picks Will Horcoff and Bill Zonnon are certainly worth tracking. As is 2024 second-rounder Tanner Howe, who only recently made his professional debut with WBS after months of rehab from knee surgery.

And don’t forget about defenseman Harrison Brunicke, who wasn’t ready to stay in the NHL after his nine-game “tryout” but was too good to go back to the WHL until no other options existed.

Murashov, 21, is still marinating in the AHL.

And several others show promise, such as 20-year-old Mikhail Ilyin, the 2023 fifth-round pick from Russia, who has 35 points in 54 games with the Cherepovets Severstal of the KHL.

The pipeline is flush with potential, but if there’s a negative this season, it’s that most of those who had a chance to contribute have not yet found the ability to consistently do so. It raises the question, just how far into the rebuild are the Penguins?

Then again, it could all be Mike Sullivan’s fault for not playing the young players.

I kid, I kid.

Tags: penguins rebuild Pittsburgh Penguins rutger mcgroarty Ville Koivunen

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