Penguins Update: It Sure is Nice to Have Some Kids to Talk About
I was rereading some articles about Saturday’s 7-3 preseason shellacking at the hands of an established Sabres squad when a thought struck me.
Isn’t it great…not to mention fun…to have some kids to be excited about?
Rutger McGroarty, Tristan Broz, Ville Koivunen, Vasily Ponomarev, Tanner Howe, Harrison Brunicke to name a few. Goalies Sergei Murashov and Joel Blomqvist, too, the latter’s leaky performance against the Sabres aside.
If it feels like it’s been 100 years since we’ve had such a crop of kids to root for, that’s because for all intents and purposes it has. True, our back-to-back Cup champions featured a healthy splash of youth, including Matt Murray, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, Tom Kuhnhackl and Scott Wilson.
However, with the notable exceptions of Murray and Guentzel, there was no real buzz or sense of expectation surrounding the others…even Rust. Indeed, they just seemed to emerge from left field…and for the most part faded out just as quickly.