Ranking the Pittsburgh Penguins' Top 10 Prospects

When the Penguins drafted Kasperi Kapanen late in the first round of last summer's draft, they added not only a unique offensive prospect but also a rare blue-chip forward to a group that at its top end is dominated by defencemen. 

Where does Kapanen slot into the organization's prospect hierarchy? Who else does Pittsburgh have in its pipeline? 

The following slideshow ranks the team's 10 best Calder-eligible prospects (in other words, Beau Bennett and Simon Despres aren't on the list) and provides capsule scouting reports. Prospects are primarily ranked based on their potential NHL ceiling, but the amount of risk involved in that projection is also a significant factor in this list.

10. Josh Archibald

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Profile: Archibald's great quality is his speed. His offensive ability has been questioned at times, though his scoring did take off in his final year at the University of Nebraska-Omaha (he tallied 29 goals in 37 games), so it's not like he's inept in the offensive zone. He's undersized for the professional game (listed at 5'10", 176 pounds) but makes up for that both with speed and with work ethic. 

Risk/Upside: There probably isn't a more important quality in hockey than skating ability, which is why Archibald lands here. It's uncertain whether he has enough talent to last in a top-six role, but the combination of speed and competitiveness makes him an interesting option for the third or fourth lines if the offence doesn't pan out. With the way the NHL is moving toward talent on all four lines, his chances aren't getting worse.

9. Matthew Murray

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Profile: Murray is part of the new wave of oversized NHL goalies. The Thunder Bay, Ontario, product is listed at 6'4" and 178 pounds and reportedly marries technical excellence to his projectable frame. He was an excellent OHLer, though he's been only middling early in his AHL career. Future Considerations notes that focus and his ability to block out a bad goal have been areas of concern for Murray in the past. 

Risk/Upside: All goalies come with considerable risk, though Murray has a long enough track record that it's mitigated somewhat. Scouting reports on his potential vary, but there are some services that see him as a potential No. 1. 

8. Teddy Blueger

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Profile: Teddy Blueger is a centre currently making his way through the American college system, but unlike a lot of players in that position in the amateur ranks, he stands a decent shot of staying in the middle at the professional level thanks to his exceptional hockey sense. He's a smart player with good vision who tends to be more than the sum of his physical gifts. 

Risk/Upside: Blueger's total offensive upside is open to some question; he's not overly big or extremely fast and is more playmaker than scorer. He has time to round his game out in college, though, and smart centres tend to find their way to the majors in one role or another. 

7. Tristan Jarry

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Profile: When the Penguins drafted Jarry early in 2013, he was the highly effective backup goaltender for the WHL's Edmonton Oil Kings. His numbers have dipped since he took over the starting job, but last season, he backstopped Edmonton first to a league championship and then a Memorial Cup win.

He has decent size and is regarded as being strong mentally; the knock on him is that he plays a little bit deep in his net. He's excellent on first shots but does surrender rebounds.

Risk/Upside: Jarry is a potential starter at the NHL level, but like all goalies, he comes with significant risk. It's going to be interesting to see how he adapts to the professional game, not only because he's still in junior but also because he plays behind a top defensive club. 

6. Jake Guentzel

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Profile: Guentzel does a lot of things well and is highly competitive, and that's essential for a player trying to carve out a pro career despite being listed at 5'10", 167 pounds. He's smart and creative, getting high marks for hockey sense and vision, and can create offence out of nothing. He's shifty, too. Red Line Report called him "elusive as a greased pig" in his draft year despite knocking his speed a little. 

Risk/Upside: The upside is as a pure offensive dynamo, but when a player's listed wieght is somewhere south of 170 pounds, it isn't all that hard to identify the primary risk. 

5. Oskar Sundqvist

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Profile: Sundqvist bucks the trend in Pittsburgh, where most of the top forward prospects are pint-sized offensive weapons. Instead, Sundqvist is a two-way centre with excellent size (listed at 6'3", 209 pounds) and a reputation for playing a belligerent style of hockey. He's never put up big numbers, but that might be changing this year; he has seven points through his first 14 games in Sweden's top league. 

Risk/Upside: Sundqvist is a safe player and a big forward with a range of skills playing at the pro level. The question is how high he can climb an NHL depth chart; will he top out as a third-liner? 

4. Brian Dumoulin

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Profile: Dumoulin does pretty much everything well. He brings projectable size (6'4", 207 pounds), good mobility and both the smarts to play on the defensive side of the puck and the skills to support the attack. He lacks high-end offensive upside and isn't as nasty as a player his size should be in a perfect world, but his range of skill makes him intriguing.  

Risk/Upside: The 23-year-old is now in his third AHL season after playing three years of college hockey, which means both that he's getting plenty of experience at a high level and that he isn't the same sort of impact prospect as an Olli Maatta or Simon Despres. If all goes well, he could be a second-pair defencemen; if all does not go well, he's still likely to crack the majors. 

3. Scott Harrington

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Profile: The numbers don't do Harrington justice. He has never been a big scorer at any level, topping out at 26 points in 44 games in the OHL in 2011-12 (and then dropping off the following year). Nor is he a monster out on the ice; at 6'2", 201 pounds, he's about average for an NHL player.

As a shutdown defenceman, he's hard to assess by numbers. But as Penguins assistant coach Gary Agnew told the Post-Gazette's Dave Molinari, "He's one of those guys who plays the game the right way." 

Harrington is smart and mobile and capable of moving the puck as well as reasonably physical; he was also the captain of his junior team. 

Risk/Upside: Defensive defencemen are hard to project, but virtually every report pegs Harrington as a surefire NHLer and likely a top-four option for Pittsburgh. 

2. Kasperi Kapanen

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Profile: Sami Kapanen's son is a lethal offensive weapon, with a combination of speed, agility and high-end finishing ability that makes him a potential game-breaker in the NHL. Like his father, he lacks top-end size (6'0", 178 pounds) and will need to prove that he can handle the physical pressures of major league play, particularly since that isn't a strong point in his game. 

Risk/Upside: He could be a top-line NHL player or a top-line player in one of Europe's top leagues who never makes the jump to hockey's highest level. Either way, he's likely to score a ton and certainly showed promise as an NHL prospect in his first training camp with Pittsburgh.  

1. Derrick Pouliot

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Profile: One of a plethora of defenceman drafted early in 2012, Pouliot's offensive weaponry is truly remarkable. He has both excellent straight-line speed and strong acceleration, he's shifty with the puck and he has both the vision and the hockey sense to make passes and the shot to score goals. His defensive game isn't nearly as well-rounded, but that should ocme with time. 

Risk/Upside: He's scoring at just a touch under a point-per-game pace as an AHL rookie, so he may not find himself at that level for very long at all. He combines a high certainty of playing with the NHL with top-pairing upside. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.

Statistics courtesy of EliteProspects.com, HockeyDB.com or NHL.com unless otherwise noted. Scouting reports from Future Considerations, McKeen's Hockey, Red Line Report and The Hockey News (subscription required) were consulted in writing profiles.