Penguins' Rutger McGroarty likely to start season on IR

Penguins top prospect Rutger McGroarty did not appear on Pittsburgh’s training camp roster as the team announced he and a few others were not medically cleared to participate. It appears McGroarty’s absence carries some more weight than the rest, though. General manager Kyle Dubas said today that McGroarty has an upper-body injury and will be out indefinitely, according to Wes Crosby of NHL.com. While not officially ruled out for the start of the season, an indefinite timeline is essentially a guarantee for missed time with less than three weeks until puck drop.

Acquired from the Jets in a rare prospect-for-prospect blockbuster last offseason, McGroarty immediately signed with the Penguins and turned pro after spending the prior two seasons at the University of Michigan. The 21-year-old broke camp with the Pens but didn’t last very long, going pointless in three outings before being sent to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. On the whole, his offensive success was a tad underwhelming. He ended up on a hot streak to end the year, but a difficult adjustment period early on led to a final scoring line of 14-25–39 in 60 minor-league games with a -10 rating. According to Byron Bader’s NHLe model, which tracks how a player’s point production in different amateur/minor leagues translates to the NHL over an 82-game pace, McGroarty’s production dropped from an equivalent of 51 points during his sophomore season at Michigan to just 31 in the AHL last year.

It was a concerning dropoff for a bit, but his hot streak with WBS got him a late-season recall. He looked more comfortable in the NHL that time around, scoring a goal and two assists in five games before a lower-body issue ended his season with a few games left on the schedule. That, plus his collegiate track record and pedigree as a No. 14 overall pick, still has him ranked as the retooling club’s No. 1 prospect according to NHL.com and Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff.

That momentum will pause here. While there aren’t as many forward jobs in Pittsburgh for young players to compete for as some were expecting – trade chips Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust both remain factors for now – those two are the only top-six locks on the wings with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to open the year. McGroarty was going to be a leading candidate to grab one of the other two top-six wing openings with a strong camp.

Instead, it’ll be other young names like the 22-year-old Ville Koivunen, who had 56 points in 63 AHL games last year and seven assists in an eight-game NHL call-up, getting that chance. Veteran reclamation projects like Anthony Mantha could get a look alongside Crosby or Malkin as well.