Penguins waive 7 players, including Sam Poulin

Heavy round of cuts today for Pittsburgh, who assign more to AHL in addition to waiver usage

Friday was a big cut day for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Seven players were put on the waiver wire. Emil Bemstrom, Nathan Clurman, Jonathan Gruden, Joona Koppanen, Filip Kral, John Ludvig and Sam Poulin all got the news they were on the way out.

Opening rosters are due to the league by Monday afternoon, so anyone not going to be on the roster for the start of the season must be waived by Sunday. The Pens got most of their business done a few days early with the dropping of Ludvig and Poulin from the fringes of the roster.

The team made another transaction to send four young players who don’t require waivers down to the AHL.

Following the removal of the waived and re-assigned players, the roster looks as follows (* for waivers required to send player down, ** for a candidate to start the season on the IR and not the 23-man roster)

Forwards (18)

NHL Contracts: Noel Acciari, Anthony Beauviller, Michael Bunting, Sidney Crosby, Lars Eller, Cody Glass, Kevin Hayes, Boko Imama*, Blake Lizotte**, Evgeni Malkin, Rutger McGroarty, Matt Nieto**, Drew O’Connor, Vasily Ponomarev**, Jesse Puljujarvi, Valtteri Puustinen*, Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust

Defense (9)

NHL Contracts: Sebastian Aho, Harrison Brunicke, Ryan Graves, Matt Grzelcyk, Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Marcus Pettersson, Ryan Shea*, Jack St. Ivany

Goalies (4)

NHL Contracts: Joel Blomqvist, Tristan Jarry, Filip Larsson, Alex Nedeljkovic**

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The team has some decisions to make on more players in the coming days to get under the limit for the start of the season. In net, after tonight Larsson is likely to be sent down to complete the goalie situation.

On defense, Harrison Brunicke makes his final case tonight for the opportunity to start the season in Pittsburgh. If he does, the team will likely have to waive Shea, but if they opt to send Brunicke back to junior the blueline could be done for movement to open the year.

Up front, there’s a ton of work to do. Nieto will be going to IR and presumably Imama will be off the NHL team after this weekend. Lizotte’s status is up in the air and Ponomarev will be on IR or in the AHL to start the season. If all of those players are removed, that leaves 14 forwards — which would work if the team drops two defensemen from above.

But, likely some combination of Puustinen, McGroarty or Shea will have to depart the roster with the IR players and Larsson+Imama before the Pens can get under 23 players to start the season.

We’ll find out tomorrow at 2:00pm if Poulin and the rest of the players on the waiver wire are bound for Wilkes-Barre or a new NHL team.