about Brunicke\u2019s play earlier this week<\/a>:<\/p>\n\u201cSince I saw him in Buffalo two years ago (at the 2024 prospect tournament) until now \u2026\u201d MacDonald started, shaking his head. \u201cHe\u2019s been doing a great job. The physical tools have always been there. But now he\u2019s recognizing when to go (jump into the play), and when not to go. He is realizing he doesn\u2019t have to do everything for everyone on the ice. You can see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone talks about his skating ability,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cAnd how he can move pucks. But did you see how many shots he blocked (in Game 4)? That, to me, is what separates him. The way he competes in the D-zone. He makes great players offensively for us at this level. But he\u2019s great on the penalty kill. He\u2019s great down low. Great stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the Penguins lack of elite prospect depth on defense, and given the ages of their current right-shot defenseman, the development of Brunicke might be one of the most important elements of their prospect pool at the moment. Especially given his age, talent and upside. Stepping right into an AHL role at 19, with little pro experience, and taking over games as your team\u2019s \u201cgo-to\u201d defenseman is a massive development.<\/p>\n
Hopefully a big confidence boost as well.<\/p>\n
Then there is starting goalie Sergei Murashov.<\/p>\n
While he has had a couple of shaky moments over the past few games, he has been a big part of getting the Penguins to this point of the playoffs and is still owning a .930 save percentage through 14 playoff games.<\/p>\n
His AHL numbers continue to pop off the page, and he is still making highlight reel saves (and a lot of them) on most nights.<\/p>\n
There have also been some new faces making immediate impacts at forward.<\/p>\n
Mikhail Ilyin, the Penguins\u2019 fifth-round draft pick in 2023, came over from Russia late in the regular season, and after appearing in just two regular season games the 20-year-old forward has wasted no time making an impact in the AHL. He is up to nine points in 14 games this postseason after scoring his second goal of the playoffs on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The player that might be one of the most positive developments, however, is 2025 first-round pick Bill Zonnon.<\/p>\n
After showing up at the start of the playoff run, having already studied and learned the Penguins system before he even arrived and sat down with the coaches, Zonnon simply started producing right from the word go and is up to seven points in 10 games. From the moment he was drafted there was a belief that he might have been the most NHL-ready and most sure-thing (as if such a thing exists in the NHL Draft) of the Penguins\u2019 three first-round picks. Maybe not an overly high-ceiling player, but at least somebody that could be a very good middle-six forward in the NHL.<\/p>\n
He has done nothing to dispute those claims, and might even be raising expectations a bit.<\/p>\n
He is only 18 years old, had no pro hockey experience prior to a month-and-a-half ago, and has not only held his own in the AHL playoffs, he has been one of their most productive players since arriving.<\/p>\n
The Penguins farm system is still lacking that one \u201cdude\u201d at the top that has franchise-changing ability. Maybe Murashov can be that due to his position and ability. Maybe. Projecting goalies is like projecting Southwestern Pennsylvania weather. Who really knows? Even so, there is legitimate depth and a nice list of potential NHL players that could be productive players as early as next season. They are taking big steps toward that this postseason in the American Hockey League. It is encouraging to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things did not go well for the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins on Friday night, dropping Game 5 of their Eastern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5113],"tags":[1079,5,4,118,1469,100,5216,211],"class_list":["post-592727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-analysis","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-penguins","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-pittsburghpenguins","tag-statistics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116703917747008019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592727","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=592727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}