The Penguins dressed a lineup consisting mostly of younger guys and depth players fighting to remain in Pittsburgh for their penultimate preseason game on Thursday in Columbus, a 3-1 win. This was the lineup they used:

Rutger McGroarty-Kevin Hayes-Jesse Puljujarvi

Ville Koivunen-Tristan Broz-Valtteri Puustinen

Emil Bemstrom-Sam Poulin-Corey Andonovski

Jonathan Gruden-Joona Koppanen-Boko Imama

Ryan Shea-Sebastian Aho

John Ludvig-Nathan Clurman

Owen Pickering-Filip Kral

Puustinen, Gruden and Hayes all scored for Pittsburgh, while Tristan Jarry played the entire game between the pipes.

“I thought the guys, to a man, competed really hard,” Mike Sullivan said. “I thought we got better as the game went on. The first 5-7 minutes of the game against an NHL lineup, I thought it was a little bit of an eye-opener for some of our guys in how quick things happen out there. But I thought we settled in, and we started to make plays… So, I think as a group in general, I thought it was a really solid effort from top to bottom.”

After the game, the Penguins head coach provided a lot of insight into the impressions left by some of these players as training camp presented by UPMC winds down before the opener on Oct. 9.

You had a lot of guys fighting for roster spots, but I want to ask you about the group up front. There’s a bunch of people trying to make this team. Who stood out tonight?

As far as guys that I thought played well, I thought Hayesy’s line played extremely well. Jesse Puljujarvi again, had a strong game. Rutger McGroarty, he’s a really smart player, and he’s got a strong stick. He’s pretty good on the wall. So, I think his game is growing and evolving. I thought Brozer’s line was pretty good. Puusty and Ville Koivunen… Puusty is getting better as the camp went on. He had a really solid game tonight. Ville, I think, is getting used to the size and the strength of the players and the pace of the game. But you can see how smart he is and how well he thinks the game. I think he really sees it. So, we were encouraged with what we saw there. I thought Sam Poulin had a couple of real good shifts. I could go down the roster. I said to the guys after the game that obviously we have some difficult decisions, and the biggest compliment to them is they’ve made the decisions more difficult. So, that’s a great problem to have from our standpoint. We’re thrilled with just the effort, the attitude, the intentions out there going over the boards. I thought the guys played hard.”

With Jesse, do you see maybe an improvement or even being more comfortable with his skating compared to this time last year [coming off bilateral hip surgery in summer 2023]?

“Night and day. I think it’s night and day. I think he’s so much stronger. I think his skating is much better. As I said to you guys on a couple of occasions with respect to Jesse, that was a very difficult rehab process that he went through last year, and that stuff takes time. He worked extremely hard to get to the point where he could even play last year. So, to have the full summer to continue to get stronger, I think his skating is night and day and his confidence is growing because of it. So, for me, if you would ask me to single out a few guys, he would be one that I think has had an extremely good training camp. He’s certainly put himself in the conversation for this Pittsburgh Penguins roster.”

Regardless of your final decisions over the weekend, it seems like there might be some optimism for the future… guys like Owen Pickering and McGroarty and a lot of young players seemed to play pretty well tonight.

“Yeah, for sure. I thought Pick had a really good game. I think you’re bang on when you say that. I think we have some young players that are part of our organization that we feel really strongly are going to be impact players. The question is when, and I think time will tell, and that will evolve. But as far as the group that we have, when you think of some of the young players that have participated in this camp… whether it’s Pick or Harry Brunicke on the back end, they’re two guys that it’s hard not to get excited about these guys, because we think they had such strong camps. We think that they improved with every game that they played. I think the influence of our veteran guys around them has really helped them also, so that that’s exciting. I mean, Rutger McGroarty I think is an exciting player for us. He’s a really smart hockey player. Ville Koivunen is an exciting player for us. (Vasily) Ponomarev’s a guy that has a real good motor. So, I think there’s a number of younger players that are part of our organization now that I think all of us are excited about in the prospects of these guys becoming Pittsburgh Penguins. We feel like they all have a chance to be impact players at some particular point in time.

Any observations with [depth defensemen] Sebastian Aho, Ryan Shea, and John Ludvig?

“I think Ryan Shea has had a great camp. I think he played really well tonight. I think he’s played extremely well throughout the course of the camp. When you look at some of the games that he’s played in, he’s played against a lot of NHL rosters. He was in Detroit when Detroit had an NHL roster. He was playing again tonight against a legitimate NHL roster. I thought he handled it extremely well. I thought this might have been Luds’ best game. I thought he had a slow start, but I think he’s got better as the camp’s gone on. I think Seabass has been as advertised. He’s a mobile guy. He’s a good puck mover. I think he defends well with his stick and his mobility. He’s a little undersized, so at the netfront and in the battle areas, that’s part of his challenge when you’re of that stature. But I think he does a real good job with a stick and his brain to try to win puck battles and and defend for us. So, these guys are all in the conversation. It’s going to be an interesting conversation how it evolves, but I have nothing but nothing but compliments all around with how hard these guys have competed throughout the course of training camp. They’ve certainly done everything within their power to set themselves up for success. And as a player, that’s really all you can ask of yourself. They’ve certainly forced us to have to make some really difficult decisions.”