The aspect about over-stocking with depth is that when everyone is healthy it might look like there’s too much on hand, but when injuries come up the situation looks better. It’s applied to the Penguins’ forwards this training camp with Noel Acciari, Rutger McGroarty and Kevin Hayes missing all (or in the latter’s cast, almost all) of the season so far.
In goal, some answers will temporarily become clear with the news that Joel Blomqvist’s injury will sideline him for four weeks, at a minimum. Blomqvist was apparently injured at some point during Monday night’s game against Montreal, though he was able to play his scheduled half of the game without incident.
Blomqvist out for much of October, at least, goes to clear up Pittsburgh’s goalie position for the time being. Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs are about set in stone now to open the season on the NHL roster, if they weren’t already this news only solidifies that. Blomqvist out of the picture is good individual news for Sergei Murashov and Filip Larsson, who will be in line to handle the fort for Wilkes-Barre in the AHL.
On the other hand, this is a troubling and unfortunate injury for Blomqvist, a key player in a crucial season. Injuries have kept him out of the lineup recently, including much of the last part of last season. Blomqvist has had some bad injury luck, which is never a good thing to befall one of the organization’s promising prospects and a player at age-23 that’s looking to make a mark within the organization. This malady could be a minor bump in the road yet in the big scheme of things, but at the very least it gives some clarity to the organization’s positioning of their goalies at the start of the season.
The great unknown is just what Blomqvist will find of the Penguin goalie situation when he returns to health in four or more weeks. Jarry has gotten off to some dreadful starts in the past two seasons. Silovs has had struggles at the NHL level and the start to his Pens career could go any number of ways. There’s a lot of uncertainty as to how those two might perform at the NHL level which contrasts good reason to be confident in how Wilkes-Barre will be between the net without Blomqvist. Larsson is a perfectly capable AHL goalie (posting a .910 save%, five shutouts and 12-9-3 record last season with WBS). Murashov started his AHL career out with 11-straight wins enroute to posting a 12-3 record and a .913 save% in limited action last season in the top minor league level.
What the situation might be when Blomqvist returns is clouded in mystery but one aspect coming into focus is how the Pens will be starting out in net with the development that one of their key ‘swing’ type of candidates to earn NHL or AHL time won’t be able to take a spot in either lineup for the next month or so.
