The Pittsburgh Penguins have made some tough decisions and cut their roster to 25 players. Two of those players are injured, those being Eric Fehr and Tom Kuhnhackl. Fehr will be put on LTIR and Kuhnhackl will be sent down when healthy. The surprise story is that Daniel Sprong has made the team and will see at least a 9 game stint before the Penguins decide whether to keep him up or send him down to the QMJHL for the rest of the season.
The Penguins released both players that were on PTO's, Gonchar and Sestito. Sestito has since signed a tryout with the Penguins affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins whilst Gonchar has been offered a behind the bench role if not offered a playing role elsewhere. Gonchar is seen as a good tutoring force for the Russian and/or European players and also a good coach for the young defencemen.
Speaking of young defencemen, Derrick Pouliot was sent down to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton to work on his game. As mentioned before I don't believe this would be a terrible move as I think he does need to work on his game. As soon as he does that, he'll be back up. Adam Clendening, part of the Sutter trade, has gotten through to the opening night roster however. He has just 21 NHL games to his name but will look to take advantage of this opportunity, no doubt.
In terms of results the Penguins didn't have a great pre-season but some players did show some good glimpses, others not so. Chris Kunitz continued to struggle and watching Scuderi play was like an assault on the eyes. If there is a taker out there then someone needs to take him. He just isn't worth having on the team.
I don't have as much an issue with Chris Kunitz as he is still a fairly decent player but he isn't a first liner any more. He should be on the 3rd line with Pascal Dupuis being centered by Bonino. However, it appears that Perron has fallen out of favour and will occupy that third line due to what Johnston has perceived to be poor play. I don't think the Penguins are going to run an actual "fourth line" in the sense. He wants four scoring lines and with the likes of Perron on the third line, he will get that.
I'm looking forward to the season starting, this season proves to be a promising one for the Penguins lets hope they can back that up with on ice performances.
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