The Penguins’ front office was making moves yesterday, with president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas acquiring a forward from Winnipeg and tendering qualifying contract offers to seven players.
26-year-old David Gustafsson has played parts of six seasons in the NHL and will be a restricted free agent starting tomorrow. He comes to Pittsburgh in exchange for defenseman Jack St. Ivany, and was one of the seven to get a qualifying offer, which gives the Penguins the right to match any contract offer he may sign with another team. Gustafsson spent most of last season in the AHL with Manitoba, where he scored ten goals and had twenty-two assists. He’s been in the Jets organization since being drafted in the second round in 2018. He is arbitration-eligible.
St. Ivany is coming off an injury-plagued season in which he played only eight games with the Penguins and eight with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
In addition to Gustafsson, the Penguins made qualifying offers to forwards Egor Chinakhov, Ville Koivunen, and Hendrix Lapierre, defenseman Alex Alexeyev, and goaltenders Joel Blomqvist and Arturs Silovs.
Meanwhile, at the Penguins’ prospect development camp in Cranberry, the talk was all about the Ruck twins, the team’s first and second round choices in the NHL Draft over the weekend.
Director of Player Development Tom Kostopoulus is running the camp. While the twins are very comfortable playing together, the Pens put them on different teams for the camp.
Top draft pick Liam Ruck reflected on the draft over the weekend, and said it was a thrill to get a phone call welcoming him to the team…from Sidney Crosby.
Second-round pick Markus Ruck is looking forward to a week working away from his brother, and then matching up against him on Friday during the prospect tournament.
The schedule for the second day of the camp today is essentially the same as yesterday. Goaltenders at 9 AM, followed by the three “teams” each getting an hour of ice time.
