Generally speaking, having a key young player sitting as a healthy scratch for an extended period of time is far from ideal from a development perspective. But that has been the case for Penguins defenseman Harrison Brunicke, a rookie blueliner who has only played twice this month and not since November 3rd.
However, it appears that his time in the press box will continue for at least a little while longer. GM Kyle Dubas recently mentioned in an interview on the Penguins Radio Network (audio link) that the 19-year-old will remain with the big club through the weekend but will continue to be a healthy scratch.
Brunicke has now been scratched for more than five games. While that normally doesn’t mean a lot, it does allow Pittsburgh to give him a two-week assignment to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. That’s doable even though he’s not eligible to play there full-time due to the NHL-CHL agreement that dictates that junior players can’t play full-time in the AHL until they’re in their age-20 season.
That strategy is likely by design, even though sitting him for what will be more than three weeks was required to get to that point. Brunicke has played in nine NHL games this season, meaning that the next one he plays this year officially will activate the first season of his entry-level contract. He has held his own in those outings while averaging a respectable 15:43 per game of playing time.
Clearly, Dubas isn’t ready to make that call yet so this pending stint will be the next determinant in their decision. When assigned, he can go down for a maximum of two weeks and they’ll likely time it to give him as many games in that stretch as possible. He will continue to count against the 23-player limit while in the minors.
Dubas also acknowledged that there is a possibility that Brunicke will be loaned to play for Canada at the World Juniors; that tournament begins in a little less than five weeks from now. Their training camp is around three weeks away and Dubas noted that they don’t want to put Brunicke in a spot where he’s going to be not playing for an extended stretch again. That could factor into when the assignment is made.
At this point, it feels like Pittsburgh is going to drag out the decision process as long as possible. By loaning him to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and then to the World Juniors soon after, they can kick the can on making a final call until early January. From there, they could either bring him back to the Penguins and officially start his contract or assign him back to WHL Kamloops to play what would amount to basically half of a junior season.
Either way, playing time will soon be on the way for Brunicke but it will be a while yet before his fate for this season ultimately gets decided.