Yesterday, the Penguins opted to bring up one of the three players they had assigned to the minors in forward Valtteri Puustinen. Today, they’ve brought up a second one as the team announced (Twitter link) that forward Jonathan Gruden has been recalled from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
The 23-year-old has spent most of the season at the AHL level, tallying 13 goals and 10 assists in 41 games. Meanwhile, this will be his fourth recall of the year and Gruden got into nine games with Pittsburgh in the first three, scoring once while chipping in with 26 hits in 8:32 per game. He’s playing on a one-year, two-way deal worth the league minimum at the NHL level and will be a restricted free agent this summer.
Notably, the Penguins don’t have the cap space to execute this recall so there is a secondary transaction that hasn’t been announced. With Jansen Harkins expected to be out for a while, he has likely been transferred to LTIR which would open up another $850K in LTIR space, enough to cover Gruden’s $775K AAV.
Barring an unannounced injury to one of their current forwards, Gruden’s recall should burn one of their four post-deadline non-emergency recalls.
Glad Dubas has a strong plan in place for the Penguins going forward, President and GM. This rebuild will be long and painful.
It really hasn’t even begun. We are tied to Malkin, Letang and Karlsson for a few more seasons. As long as they are around the team will try to be as competitive as possible