Pittsburgh Penguins: Vasily Ponomarev Prospect To Watch In Training Camp

The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired Vasily Ponomarev from the Carolina Hurricanes near the NHL trade deadline last season and sent Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes. There were some fans at the time who criticized the Guentzel trade, but the Hurricanes did not re-sign Guentzel. Instead, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning this offseason. It appears as if the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Guentzel trade with the Hurricanes.

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Prospect To Watch In Training Camp

When the Pittsburgh Penguins training camp opens up next month, there will be some young players to keep an eye on. Other than Rutger McGroarty, Vasily Ponomarev will be another prospect to keep an eye on. Back in March, Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas spoke to Andrew Deston of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Ponomarev. Dubas said:

“I would expect that at some point here down the stretch, [Ponomarev] will get a good run with us. And then, we expect him to challenge — I don’t think anything’s guaranteed — but we expect him to challenge for being on the roster going into next year.”

It is possible that Ponomarev may not make the team out of training camp, but he could very well be a player who gets called up from the minor leagues onto the big league roster in case of injuries. Ponomarev is only 22 years old. He has played in the NHL before with the Carolina Hurricanes. In only two games with Carolina a season ago, he scored a goal and recorded an assist. His plus/minus rating was 1. Vasily Ponomarev played for three different AHL teams last season: Tuscon Roadrunners, the Chicago Wolves, and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

In four appearances with the Penguins AHL affiliate, he only scored one goal and had a plus/minus rating of -3. Injury was one of the reasons why he only appeared in four games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Pensburgh.com has Vasily Ponomarev as the #6 ranked prospect in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. For now, there is no room for him to make the Pittsburgh Penguins roster to start next season, but there is no doubt he could be in the plans for the future.

The Pittsburgh Penguins do need to get younger at some point with the old age on their roster. Another young player to watch during training camp is goalie Joel Blomqvist. Ponomarev could very well be a future third or fourth-liner in the NHL. At this point, the Penguins have a much better bottom six than they did a year ago. The Carolina Hurricanes had a lot of prospects they were able to deal and that is why they were able to swing a Jake Guentzel trade. However, it is the Pittsburgh Penguins gain now that they have Vasily Ponomarev in the organization.

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Article originally written by Glenn Kaplan