Penguins split camp groups into distinct categories

Take a gander at the new list of teams at Penguins’ training camp:

“Team 1” is 24 names that essentially is the full and complete NHL roster. 23 is the limit and one of Casey DeSmith or Tristan Jarry will definitely being going out here. Otherwise, and barring any future injury, this is the pool of players that will make up the opening night roster on October 3rd when the Penguins open their regular season.

“Team 2” is made up of the players expected to be in the AHL this season.

“Team 3” is, well, probably not long for this world of NHL training camp. It is comprised of all the of the AHL only contracts, some lower-end AHL caliber players, as well as players that will soon be back in junior like Calen Addison, Samuel Poulin and Nathan Legare. Those players are skating first at 9:00am this morning in what be one more last chance on Pittsburgh ice before an announcement is made later on today about some cuts, one would think.

This is a very interesting split at departure from norms to group all the NHL guys together for the first time, and fairly early in camp, but so it goes. There’s not really any spots that are up for grabs to make the NHL roster this year in Pittsburgh and the new camp groups are pretty reflective of that.

Pittsburgh still has to make it through five more preseason games over the next 10 days starting tomorrow, so a lot of the Team 2 guys will be needed to be kept around to keep options open for those games but with the Wilkes-Barre training camp expected to open, it would sure seem like a lot of the Team 3 players who are professionals should be assigned there very much sooner than later.

The interesting point now will be to watch and see how Team 1 is used. Will Dominik Kahun remain with the Sidney Crosby-Jake Guentzel line? Is Brandon Tanev staying with Evgeni Malkin longer? How’s the lower lines shaking out? We might get a better sense of how that’s looking later on today.

Update: and here it goes:

We’ll see how long it looks like this, it won’t forever, but some interesting ideas to see how the coaches are thinking right now.