Heinen, Graves Earn Their Way Back

After a competitive training camp, veterans Danton Heinen and Ryan Graves were told they would be going on waivers.

“Obviously, the news you don’t want to hear,” Heinen said. “You wanted to make this team. But there’s not much you can do. You’ve got to go down, work hard and work towards getting back here.”

Both players cleared waivers and went to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, with Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse saying the reports were “outstanding.”

“Obviously, you want to play in the NHL. It’s the best league in the world. It’s hard to be here. I have an appreciation for that. You go there [to the AHL], you want to go with a good mindset and you want to be back here,” Graves said.

Heinen and Graves were recalled to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and rejoined the team for practice on Wednesday ahead of three games in four days and some player personnel changes.

Justin Brazeau, who’s had a hot start to his first season with Pittsburgh, will miss a minimum of four weeks with an upper-body injury; Noel Acciari will miss a minimum of three weeks with an upper-body injury; Owen Pickering was re-assigned to WBS; and Filip Hallander also appeared to leave practice early, but Muse had no update.

He was extremely complimentary of how Heinen and Graves handled their situation, and it’s resulted in opportunities for them.

“These are guys that have been in the league for a long time, and those were the decisions that we made. I think there's two roads that they could have gone down in terms of how they wanted to handle it,” Muse continued. “Both guys chose the correct path, and the right path for them.

“The reports were great in terms of, number one, the approach they took when they went down there, and then the work that they put in. Then they followed it up with their play. And so, all those things were at a very, very high level.”

As Graves said, at the end of the day, it’s about the person that you are, too.

“You’re not going to go there and sulk and complain,” he said. “You’re still playing hockey for a living. That’s pretty cool. There’s been some aspects of it that have been really hard. But I’ve been on the side of it where you’re a 20-year-old kid and coming into the American League, and there’s some guys that I’ve played with that came down and you could see both sides of how guys take it. You can either go there and ride into the sunset and just take it with a bad attitude and be miserable, or you can go there and you can try to play and work on your game and get better. It’s a good league.”

The 30-year-old defenseman is in the third year of a six-year deal signed on the first day of free agency in 2023. His tenure has had its challenges, to be sure, but Graves’ time in WBS could be the reset he needed.

Graves notched seven points (1G-6A) in 10 games in the AHL. He leads all WBS Penguins defensemen in points (7) and ranks fourth overall on the team. Graves also leads the team in plus/minus (+9) which ranks tied for fifth overall in the league and is tied for first among defensemen at the time of his recall.

“You get a lot of opportunity to play,” Graves said. “You play in all situations. You play a lot of minutes, some of them [in situations] you might not play here. It’s nice to be able to build confidence and feel the game. And you can work, and you can make mistakes and you can keep playing because you’re going to play a lot. And you just try to build your game and build confidence.”

Meanwhile, Heinen, 30, is in his second stint with the Penguins organization after being acquired at last year’s trade deadline. He had 16 goals in his rookie season with Boston, a big reason Pittsburgh originally signed him. Heinen then had a career-high 18 goals in 2021-22 and potted 17 in 2023-24 with Boston, but dropped off somewhat last year before not showing enough to stay at training camp.

So, Heinen went down and made the most of his opportunity. At the time of his recall, he led the AHL in points (14) and led the WBS Penguins in every major category; goals (5), assists (9) and points (14). The forward also leads the team in power-play goals (3) which is tied for third in the AHL.

“I just want to prove that I believe I’m an NHLer and I believe that I can help this team win. That’s what I’m coming up here to do and do everything I can to show it,” Heinen said. “I don’t think you can look back with regrets. You’ve just got to keep looking forward.”

Heinen had played only a handful of games at the center position until going to WBS, where he was slotted into the middle early on. Heinen did rushes there today, centering Phil Tomasino and Ville Koivunen.

“There’s a few things you’ve got to learn and a few things that weren’t natural. But I got a handful of games under my belt there now,” Heinen said. “Just trying to learn and get better.”

Here are the lines and D-pairs the Penguins used...

Kindel-Crosby-Rust

Mantha-Malkin-Novak

Tomasino-Heinen-Koivunen

Dewar-Lizotte-Hallander/Hayes

Wotherspoon-Karlsson

Shea-Letang

Graves-Clifton

Dumba-Brunicke

Crosby said Kindel, coming off the first two-goal game of his NHL career, brings speed to their line. “Skates really well and competes hard on pucks. So, yeah, just we'll try to work off each other,” Crosby said.

As Crosby was doing media availability surrounded by reporters, Kindel came into the room, not quite able to get to his stall next to the captain. The 18-year-old rookie patiently waited for Crosby to finish up before the group went over to him.

“If I get that opportunity to play with two elite players like that, I'm very honored and grateful to have that opportunity and just going to do whatever I can to help that line,” Kindel said. “I'm just trying to read off them as much as I can and just trying to move the puck to them, win puck battles, just keep plays alive, stuff like that. You know, things like that... I think it's going to be really important."