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Radim Zohorna Recalled, Jansen Harkins To AHL

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that forward Radim Zohorna has been recalled from the club’s AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. In addition, forward Jansen Harkins has cleared waivers and been assigned to Wilkes-Barre Scranton. Harkins, 26, arrived in Pittsburgh via a waiver claim from the Winnipeg Jets, and has played in four NHL games for the Penguins. He hasn’t registered a point in that span and most recently was playing on head coach Mike Sullivan’s third line alongside Drew O’Connor and Lars Eller.

Harkins has been a stellar AHLer in the past, such as last season when he scored 50 points in just 44 games for the Manitoba Moose, so he’s likely to be an impact forward in Wilkes-Barre Scranton. Harkins’ replacement, Zohorna, brings more size to the Penguins’ bottom-six, though he has not produced as well in North America as Harkins has. The Penguins’ bottom-six forwards as a whole have left the team wanting more, so perhaps this move will help spark an uptick in form for the Penguins’ bottom-sixers.

Kris Letang, Noel Acciari Return To Practice

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Pittsburgh Announces Letang, Acciari Out With Injury

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Penguins Place Karel Plasek On Unconditional Waivers

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Oct. 19: Plasek has cleared waivers, and his contract can now be terminated, per CapFriendly.

Oct. 18: After acquiring him via trade yesterday from the Canucks, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports the Pittsburgh Penguins have placed minor-league forward Karel Plasek on unconditional waivers for the purposes of mutual contract termination.

Plasek, 23, was a sixth-round pick of the Canucks in 2019. He has no NHL experience, and injuries have limited him to just eight AHL contests since his draft day, all coming in 2021-22 with AHL Abbotsford. He was held scoreless and has instead primarily played pro hockey in his native Czechia since first breaking into the pro ranks in 2017-18. With Plasek previously destined for an ECHL assignment before hitting waivers today, it doesn’t seem likely he’ll try and sign a new deal in North America. A return to the Czech Extraliga is the most probable scenario in the coming days.

That return could potentially be with HC Olomouc, the club he spent 2022-23 with on loan from Vancouver. There, he recorded a career-high nine assists and 15 points in 31 contests and added five points in seven playoff games. Olomouc doesn’t have any players with NHL experience on their roster, but it is the club where former Bruins center David Krejci spent the 2021-22 campaign while he took a gap year before eventually returning to the Bruins last season.

Penguins Place Jansen Harkins On Waivers

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have placed forward Jansen Harkins on waivers for the purpose of assignment to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

This could end an extremely short stint in Pittsburgh for the 26-year-old. He began training camp as a member of the Winnipeg Jets, who waived him at the beginning of the month, and Pittsburgh snapped him up off waivers. Just over two weeks later, he finds himself on the wire again.

Harkins had averaged just 9:28 per game through four contests with Pittsburgh despite playing a third-line role with Lars Eller and Drew O’Connor, but Eller is the only player out of that trio who had managed to get on the scoresheet – just one assist. In fact, Eller is the only member of the Penguins’ bottom six to register a point this season. The entire fourth line remains scoreless through four contests.

The North Vancouver native had just five points in 22 games with Winnipeg last season but quite impressive numbers in the minors. With the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, Harkins notched 50 points in 44 games, his second time breaking the point-per-game plane in the AHL.

Manitoba is where he could continue his season if the Jets attempt to reclaim him on waivers and are the only team to do so. In that case, Winnipeg could send him directly to the minors without risking his rights on waivers again. If any other team puts in a claim, he will need waivers to head to the minors.

Penguins Acquire Jack Rathbone From Canucks

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The Penguins have acquired once-promising defense prospect Jack Rathbone from the Canucks and minor-league forward Karel Plasek, per a team release. In return, the Canucks receive a pair of players designated for AHL Abbotsford in defenseman Mark Friedman and forward Ty Glover.

Rathbone and Friedman will report to their new teams’ respective AHL affiliates, while Plasek and Glover will report to their new teams’ respective ECHL affiliates.

While a fourth-round pick in 2017, Rathbone’s stock as a prospect rose wildly in the 2019-20 season after recording 31 points in 28 games during his sophomore campaign at Harvard. He then turned pro with Ivy League schools shutting down in 2020 due to COVID, but he didn’t play much – just eight games with Vancouver and eight with AHL Utica, instead spending most of the season on the taxi squad.

2021-22 saw him put together an incredible rookie season in the minors, again notching over a point per game with Abbotsford – although he was held without a point in a nine-game NHL call-up. That led to optimism he would become a full-time fixture on the Canucks’ blueline in 2022-23, but it wasn’t to be. He played just 11 NHL games, recording two points, and his production took a significant step back in the minors – just five goals and nine assists for 14 points in 37 contests. He has a goal through two games with Abbotsford this season.

He’ll now try and get back on track with AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he joins another young defenseman looking to reclaim his game – 2018 first-round pick Ty Smith, who’s just a year removed from posting back-to-back 20-point years with the New Jersey Devils. The 24-year-old Rathbone is a pending restricted free agent who’s owed a rather pricey qualifying offer of $997.5K this summer.

Pittsburgh also receives the 23-year-old Plasek, a Canucks sixth-round selection in 2019. He only has one season in North America under his belt – an injury-plagued 2021-22 campaign that saw him play eight games for AHL Abbotsford, failing to record a point. On loan with HC Olomouc in the Czech Extraliga last season, Plasek recorded six goals and nine assists for 15 points in 31 contests.

Vancouver’s return is not puny – Friedman is a two-way defender who excels defensively at the minor-league level and can provide reliable bottom-pairing minutes in a pinch. The 27-year-old pending UFA is signed to a one-way contract this season but cleared waivers pre-season with the Penguins. He appeared in 23 games for the Penguins in 2022-23, recording a goal and two assists while averaging 14:27 per game. He has the most career NHL games of anyone involved in this trade, with 65.

Glover, 23, was an undrafted free agent signing by Pittsburgh in 2022 after a pair of campaigns with Western Michigan University. He spent all of 2022-23 at the AHL level with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, recording seven goals and five assists for 12 points in 49 contests. However, he failed to crack the AHL squad out of camp this season and was assigned to ECHL Wheeling before the trade, although he’ll now likely join Vancouver’s affiliate at that level, the Kalamazoo Wings.

Ryan Shea Nearly Joined Penguins As College Free Agent In 2020

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  • Penguins defenseman Ryan Shea acknowledged to Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Pittsburgh was the runner-up when NHL teams were pursuing him out of college back in 2020. The 26-year-old ultimately signed with Dallas at the time but never suited up for the Stars despite being recalled for a handful of days here and there.  Shea somewhat surprisingly cracked Pittsburgh’s opening roster after signing with them this past summer with a good showing in training camp and could get a chance to make his NHL debut in the coming days.

Will Butcher Close To Return

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  • A little over a week before the start of training camp this autumn, new depth defenseman for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Will Butcher, sustained an injury that would keep him out of all on-ice activities for over a month. Today, Matt Vensel of Post-Gazette Sports is reporting that Butcher is back to practice in a non-contact jersey, and will likely be sent to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins very soon. Spending all of last season for the Texas Stars in the AHL, Butcher would score six goals and 37 assists in 65 games.

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Penguins And Guentzel Not Close To Extension

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David Pagnotta of The NHL Network tweeted that he has heard that the Pittsburgh Penguins and winger Jake Guentzel have talked about a contract extension, but they are not close to an agreement. Pagnotta followed that up with another tweet adding that he has been told by sources that the two sides may shelve contract negotiations until after the season.

The 29-year-old is set to play out the final year of his five-year $30MM contract and will be due a big raise if he performs anywhere close to his historical averages. Guentzel is coming off back-to-back 35+ goal seasons and has averaged nearly a point a game since breaking into the league in November 2016. The knock-on Guentzel has always been that he puts up elite numbers because he plays with Sidney Crosby, but there has never been another player able to duplicate the kind of success Guentzel has had on Crosby’s line. Chris Kunitz was Crosby’s linemate for nearly a decade and posted just two seasons with more than 60 points, while Guentzel has topped 70 points three times in the last five years. Guentzel is sometimes the forgotten star in Pittsburgh playing behind Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and now Erik Karlsson. But, without the Omaha, Nebraska native in 2017, the Penguins probably don’t repeat as Stanley Cup champions.

The Penguins are in a bit of a curious spot this season as they are firmly committed to an older core of players but could find themselves with a ton of cap space next summer if they don’t sign any of their pending free agents. One might wonder if the Penguins are waiting to see if any impact free agents go to unrestricted free agency next summer before they decide whether to sign their own impact free agent.

From Guentzel’s perspective, he has earned the right to test the free agent market and might worry about the Penguins’ future when Crosby, Letang and Malkin retire, which could be sooner than later. Guentzel would likely fetch a seven- or eight-year deal. Given the ages of the aforementioned players, Guentzel’s final years in Pittsburgh could be on a rebuilding team if he elects to re-sign with the team long-term.

Latest On Will Butcher

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  • The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Seth Rorabaugh reports that defenseman Will Butcher skated this morning, a positive development for a player who missed all of training camp and preseason due to injury. Butcher has begun this season on season-opening injured reserve, but when he eventually becomes ready to play it’s likely he’ll find himself waived and sent to the AHL. Butcher signed a one-year, league-minimum deal in Pittsburgh likely with the hope that he would compete for a depth role on the Penguins’ NHL defense, but due to this injury it’s now likely that he’ll have to work his way into NHL consideration with the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. 2022-23 was Butcher’s first in the AHL, and he impressed scoring 43 points in 67 games.

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