Second Round and Beyond

The Penguins were recently named the league's
top team of the salary cap era
, a feat that doesn't come without sacrifices.
In their continuing quest to achieve the ultimate goal, the Penguins have given up a number of high NHL Draft picks. Because of that, along with the restrictions that come with said salary cap, a perennial contender like Pittsburgh has to focus on collecting assets outside of the first round and subsequently developing them - and they've done so successfully.

From Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Brian Dumoulin to Teddy Blueger, Tristan Jarry, Sam Lafferty and Anthony Angello, there are plenty of later-round picks who are currently contributing to the Penguins.
And once those later-round picks are in the organization, the development process is of the utmost importance, because those players will most likely need time. It's a process that requires a lot of patience, but the Penguins have proven that it works.
Blueger has been the most recent example of that, signing
his first big contract
on July 14 and subsequently earning a spot on Pittsburgh's protected list for the 2021 Expansion Draft, nearly 10 years after he was originally selected in the second round of the 2012 NHL Draft.
"Teddy has proven to be a versatile, two-way center, as well as a fixture on the penalty kill," general manager Ron Hextall said. "He is a valuable player for our team."
After getting selected by the Penguins, the forward out of Shattuck-St. Mary's went on to play four years at Minnesota State and then three full seasons with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League. The entire time, he showcased the tireless work ethic that has become his signature in hopes of getting to Pittsburgh at some point.
Blueger finally received his first call-up in 2019, making his Penguins debut on Jan. 30 of that year, and never really looked back. He's someone that people both inside and outside of the organization point to as a marathon prospect, a player with traits that would get them to the NHL after years of developing their game.
Penguins director of player personnel Chris Pryor, who had been with the Flyers from 1999-2019 in various capacities before joining Ron Hextall's
staff here
in Pittsburgh, during the season, is one of those people.
"I was very impressed with Teddy just from watching him grow from the outside," said Pryor, who saw him play during his scouting days with Philadelphia. "Sometimes we don't show enough patience from an industry standpoint, and I think Teddy's proof of that. First and foremost, most of the credit goes to the kid. But from a patience standpoint, the Penguins have shown a huge amount of it with Teddy, and you see the fruits of that labor right now."
Pryor is a Minnesota native who attended Hill-Murray School - the same high school school as Jake Guentzel - and his children grew up in Woodbury alongside the Penguins forward.
"He's a fantastic story. I remember when he was just a little guy running around," Pryor said. "Watching him grow up and where he is today, a lot like Teddy Blueger, it was fun watching his story unfold. And we all know the success Jake has had. So it's pretty special to watch."
Teams questioned whether Guentzel could overcome his lack of size despite his obvious skill and hockey sense, but former Penguins amateur scout Scott Bell had zero doubts that
Guentzel would be in the NHL
. Pryor had the same belief that Bell did.
"He was always the smallest guy out there, because he was always the youngest guy," Pryor said. "He just was a hockey player from Day 1. So you could tell there was something going on there because he had the puck all the time, playing with older guys. His game was a lot like it is today, only it's matured, obviously. But you could tell that there was something going on there at a young age."
After drafting him in the third round (77th overall) in 2013, Guentzel turned pro after three years at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He eventually played a starring role in Pittsburgh's 2017 Stanley Cup championship as a rookie and has quickly developed into one of the league's elite goal scorers.
Guentzel has also become the 'winger for Sid' that the Penguins had searched for through free agency and trades. Turns out he had been there for a few years - added through the draft and developed in the system.
The player on Crosby's other wing this past season was also added through the draft and developed in the system. Rust's journey to the NHL started when the Penguins drafted him in the third round (80th overall) back in 2010 as a 'marathon prospect.'
"I was never the guy where they'd say okay, he's for sure going to be in the NHL," Rust said. "I was always the guy where it was like well, he's got potential. He's got potential to be a third- or fourth-line guy with energy, with speed. And I took that and I put it in the back of my mind and said, I got to prove these people wrong."
That mindset fueled Rust as he bounced between WBS and Pittsburgh after he turned pro following four years at Notre Dame. The entire time, the Penguins were constantly telling Rust what he needed to do, and he took all of that feedback to heart - working hard to stay ready and seize his opportunity when the time came.
And he did that, playing a huge role in the Penguins' back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and '17. From there, the 29-year-old winger continued to evolve, turning into a consistent impact player on both sides of the puck and a leader in the locker room who improves with each passing year.
"When I look back on my experiences, I can't think of another guy that has developed his game as much as Rusty has," Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said.
And speaking of consistent, that's Dumoulin's middle name - to the point where it can be easy to forget the 29-year-old defenseman spent the majority of his first three professional seasons in WBS.
Dumoulin was originally drafted by Jim Rutherford and his staff in the second round (51st overall) by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2009. Three years later, the Penguins acquired the prospect in a trade at the 2012 NHL Draft.
At the time, Dumoulin was just 20 years old and had recently finished his junior season at Boston College. But Pittsburgh's scouting staff had liked Dumoulin for a while, and so they lobbied Ray Shero to include him in the deal.
From there, the Penguins took their time with Dumoulin. His full NHL season didn't come until 2015-16, and it ended with him anchoring the top D pair alongside Letang as the Penguins captured the Stanley Cup.
Letang was taken 62nd overall in 2005, and it's crazy to think that an elite talent like that would slip down that far. But going into the 2003-04 lockout, obstruction had slowed down the game and dried up the scoring. The league had a plan to crack down, but no one knew if the plan would actually stick.
That meant teams questioned whether players like Letang, who possessed remarkable skill and skating ability, would thrive in this new NHL with his relative lack of size.
"Teams were still thinking the old ways. They didn't know what (the new NHL) was going to look like," Letang said. "The big defensemen, strong guys, were the key there. Teams started taking more chances in the second and third rounds with smaller defensemen that skate."
That's exactly what Pittsburgh did with Letang, and it's a credit to their scouting staff at the time, because it's a move that ended up giving the Penguins their franchise defenseman.
Getting even further into the draft, the final rounds are absolutely critical to a team like the Penguins, and it's important to make every pick count, even if it's in the seventh round. And the scouting staff approaches those picks with a competitive fire.
They try to look for different characteristics where they know the player might not be perfect today, but in a few years down the road - with the team's help - they might have enough traits that can get them to the NHL. Basically, they are trying to project the type of player these 17- and 18-year-olds will be when they're 24 and 25 years old.
They did that with Tom Kuhnhackl (fourth round, 110th overall, 2010); Josh Archibald (sixth round, 174th overall, 2011) and Scott Wilson (seventh round, 209th overall, 2011) - who all contributed in some way to Pittsburgh's back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
On their current roster, the Penguins' later-round picks include Lafferty (fourth round, 113th overall, 2014) and Angello (fifth round, 145th overall, 2014). And we'd be remiss not to mention John Marino, who was originally drafted in the sixth round (154th overall) by Edmonton in 2014. The Penguins acquired him for a conditional sixth-round pick in 2019, and he's since become an integral part of the blue line, inking a six-year contract extension at the start of last season.
Marino shows how the work of the scouting and player development staffs doesn't end at the draft. They have to keep an eye out for players who stand out and that might have slipped through the cracks, like Zach Aston-Reese and Drew O'Connor. That's part of the reason why the Penguins added Matt Mangene as an amateur free agent scout.
The entire staff is looking forward to the 2021 NHL Draft, the first under the current management group.
Round 1 scheduled for tonight at 8 PM and Rounds 2-7 starting at 11 AM on Saturday. The Penguins hold five total selections, in the second (58th overall), fifth (154th overall), and seventh (194th, 215th and 218th overall) rounds.
When it comes to Pittsburgh's first pick, Pryor feels confident that there will be a good player available at No. 58.
"We're pretty comfortable that someone's going to fall to us that we have higher than where we're picking right now," Pryor said. "We feel there's a decent group of players that have a probability of being there. We'll see what's sitting there when we're picking."
There's quite a big gap from there until the next pick, so Pryor said the group will sit back, have a cup of coffee and see what happens from there.
"It's going to be a long day. It's an exciting day," Pryor said. "This is what scouts work for all year. I know we don't have a lot of picks, but we're confident that the players that we've identified - we're hoping that some of those players are available when we're picking. We got a second, a fifth and three sevenths. So we'll try and make the best of it."
The fact that the Penguins have continued to compete for Stanley Cups year after year in the salary cap era is incredible, and it's a tradition that Hextall and Pryor plan to continue.
"They've done a really good job with some of those picks over recent years," Pryor said. "Credit to them. We just don't want to screw it up too bad (laughs)."