{"id":414897,"date":"2026-01-18T21:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/414897\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:45:11","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-reassign-rutger-mcgroarty-recall-joona-koppanen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/414897\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins Reassign Rutger McGroarty, Recall Joona Koppanen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced today<\/a> that forward Joona Koppanen<\/a> has been recalled from the club\u2019s AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins. In a corresponding move, the club activated forward Rutger McGroarty<\/a> off injured reserve and reassigned him to the AHL.<\/p>\n

McGroarty has been sidelined since Jan. 3 with a concussion. This reassignment allows McGroarty to build back up to NHL readiness at the AHL level after missing seven games. The 21-year-old began the year in Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton, scoring seven points in just five games. That performance, likely coupled with the fact that he\u2019s widely considered one of the team\u2019s top prospects, landed McGroarty a spot on the team\u2019s NHL roster.<\/p>\n

Before his injury, McGroarty had managed to dress for a total of 16 NHL contests this season. Averaging 12:13 time on ice per game without much special teams usage to speak of, McGroarty only managed three points.<\/p>\n

As a prospect, the most significant question mark surrounding McGroarty was his skating. The Athletic\u2019s Corey Pronman classified<\/a> McGroarty\u2019s foot speed as \u201cmediocre,\u201d while David St-Louis of Elite Prospects wrote<\/a> that McGroarty could become a quality middle-six NHLer if he could further develop his skating stride.<\/p>\n

While McGroarty is widely credited with having improved his skating over the course of his time in the Penguins organization, the pace of NHL hockey proved to be a steep challenge for him during his 16 games of action so far this season. As a result, he has thus far been unable to translate his offensive production from the AHL level to the NHL, even as other positive qualities in his game have begun to surface.<\/p>\n

Not only does reassigning McGroarty to the AHL give him a chance to ramp up from his injury recovery in a lower-pressure environment, it also gives him the chance to build up some confidence as a scorer. While the Penguins have not indicated any clear timeline for McGroarty\u2019s return to the NHL level, it would be a surprise to see him with the AHL Penguins for an extended period.<\/p>\n

Benefiting from McGroarty\u2019s reassignment is Koppanen, who returns to the NHL roster after almost two months in the AHL. The 27-year-old last played in the NHL on Nov. 29, skating 13:28 in a tough 7-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He\u2019s played in 10 games this season, registering one assist on 12:28 time on ice per game.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s possible Koppanen\u2019s recall lasts only as long as it takes for McGroarty to return to the NHL, this transaction is nonetheless a significant opportunity for the winger to gain some NHL experience in advance of his unrestricted free agency in the summer.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the season, The Athletic\u2019s Josh Yohe wrote that Koppanen<\/a> \u201cisn\u2019t an NHL player.\u201d He hasn\u2019t gotten into an NHL game since that point. The key for Koppanen to flip that narrative and earn both an extended stint in the NHL and a one-way NHL contract for next season (he\u2019s playing this year on a two-way deal with a $475K AHL salary) will be to bring a consistent defensive and physical element to the table on a shift-by-shift basis.<\/p>\n

Koppanen stands 6\u20195\u2033 and already got some time on the penalty kill in his last NHL stint. He has all the tools necessary to be an impactful fourth-line role player, and now this recall gives him another opportunity to show he can translate those tools into meaningful on-ice value.<\/p>\n

As a pending UFA, every strong NHL game he can add to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 could make a difference in the summer, so how he performs in this newfound opportunity will be interesting to monitor in Pittsburgh\u2019s next few games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins announced today that forward Joona Koppanen has been recalled from the club\u2019s AHL affiliate, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[401,5,4153,4,118,1469,100,5216,101],"class_list":["post-414897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-ahl","tag-hockey","tag-joona-koppanen","tag-nhl","tag-penguins","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-pittsburghpenguins","tag-rutger-mcgroarty"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115918296006510300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414897","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=414897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}