{"id":271617,"date":"2025-10-28T16:46:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/271617\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:46:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:46:23","slug":"penguins-recall-owen-pickering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/271617\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins Recall Owen Pickering"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Penguins announced Tuesday that they\u2019ve recalled defenseman\u00a0Owen Pickering<\/a>\u00a0from AHL Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton. The team\u00a0had an open roster spot after\u00a0placing<\/a>\u00a0Caleb Jones<\/a> on injured reserve on Saturday, so no corresponding transaction is required.<\/p>\n

Pickering, 21, was in contention for a roster spot for most of training camp but ended up being one of Pittsburgh\u2019s final cuts. The 2022 first-round pick was once the club\u2019s top defense prospect but has since been lapped by\u00a0Harrison Brunicke<\/a>. That has more to do with the latter\u2019s emergence than a lack of development on Pickering\u2019s part, though. The 6\u20195\u2033, 201-lb lefty is technically no longer a rookie, having appeared in 25 NHL games last season. In his first taste of the big leagues, Pickering managed a goal and two assists for three points with a minus-five rating. His ice time was somewhat limited at 14:49 per game, but the smooth-skating rearguard got some looks on the penalty kill and had passable possession impacts at even strength. His 48.9 CF% and 50.0 xGF% were both slightly above what the Penguins managed when he wasn\u2019t on the ice.<\/p>\n

Brunicke\u2019s emergence, plus an influx of veterans to Pittsburgh\u2019s blue line depth this offseason, meant Pickering ultimately faced too much of a battle to win an NHL job, at least for the first few weeks of the season. He\u2019ll now get what could be an extended look with Jones not expected back until Christmas. Pickering has shown out well in his first few weeks of play in the minors, scoring a goal and three assists for four points with a plus-four rating in seven games. That has the Penguins\u2019 brass happy with how his two-way game has developed from last season, when he was more offensively reserved for the Baby Pens (a 2-11\u201313 scoring line in 47 GP) but still managed a +18 rating.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s certain is that the Penguins\u2019 season-long bottom-pairing rotation won\u2019t be changing anytime soon. They\u2019ve settled into having\u00a0Ryan Shea<\/a>\u2013Kris Letang<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Parker Wotherspoon<\/a>\u2013Erik Karlsson<\/a>\u00a0duos as their top two pairings, but have cycled Brunicke, Jones, Connor Clifton<\/a>, and\u00a0Matt Dumba<\/a>\u00a0into third-pairing duties through their first 10 games. Brunicke and Jones were head coach Dan Muse\u2019s obvious preference for the role, with each logging seven appearances, and Clifton and Dumba only managing three. With Brunicke, Clifton, and Dumba all being righties, there\u2019s plenty of opportunity for Pickering to get a consistent run of games if Muse wants to keep an even left-shot\/right-shot balance in his lineup.<\/p>\n

Pickering gets elevated into an environment in Pittsburgh that\u2019s brighter than anyone could have imagined a month ago. Expected to be bottom-dwellers, the retooling Pens have instead rocketed up to second in the Metropolitan Division with a 7-2-1 record while, with Pickering now in the fold, seeing all of their top five prospects have stints on the roster (including the IR-bound\u00a0Rutger McGroarty<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins announced Tuesday that they\u2019ve recalled defenseman\u00a0Owen Pickering\u00a0from AHL Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton. The team\u00a0had an open roster spot after\u00a0placing\u00a0Caleb…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,108,100,405],"class_list":{"0":"post-271617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-owen-pickering","10":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","11":"tag-transactions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115452810817917457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}