Prospect Info: '24-'25 Prospects Thread: Generation Z

[Empoleon8771]

Obviously its way too early to judge but the returns from the 2024 draft class are looking really good. Harding, Brunicke and Pietila are having big production jumps while Swanson is having a really nice start to his college career. Hopefully Howe can get traded to a contender at some point and start putting up points.

Lol oops I just made a post about exactly this because I didn't read your post from a few days ago. My bad

But yes, you're right. I don't want to get too crazy about a 7th round overager like Harding, but what he's producing combined with his size and defensive game (or what I've read about his defensive game) is very impressive. Even as overagers, you don't usually see self described defense-first defensemen putting up PPG numbers in juniors.

Just for a point of comparison, Scott Harrington is the first guy that jumps to my mind as a "defense first defensemen" the Penguins drafted out of the CHL and his final junior season had him with 19 points in 50 games.

Another defenseman prospect I think is worth noting: Pieniniemi is also having a really good year in the OHL this year. 20 points in 19 games as a defenseman, very good production.

 

[Rudy Russo]

Some stats of Penguins prospects/ draft picks plus former penguin Brayden Yager

Player​	Games Played​	Goals​	Assists​	Total Points​
Mac Swanson- LW​	9​	2​	4​	6​
Chase Pietila- RD​	8​	3​	4​	7​
Harrison Brunicke RD​	15​	3​	9​	12​
Tanner Howe- LW​	8​	5​	1​	6​
Finn Harding- RD​	17​	1​	16​	17​
Emil Pieniniemi- LD​	20​	3​	17​	20​
Cooper Foster- C​	17​	11​	7​	18​
Luke Devlin- C​	28​	6​	2​	8​
Mikhail Ilyin- (KHL) LW/RW​	23​	1​	10​	11​
Zam Plante- C​	9​	1​	3​	4​
Kirill Tankov- (VHL) C​	10​	2​	1​	3​
Chase Yoder- C​	10​	1​	2​	3​
Daniel Laatsch- LD​	10​	1​	0​	1​
Brayden Yager- C​	17​	10​	14​	24​

 

[OtherThingsILike]

It's cool that Chase Pietila is doing well so far. That pick was universally panned.

 

[Ulf5]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1855712186166841488

First of the season, still at 1 PPG.

Finn has to change his name! Everytime I see it/read it, I think of Ice-T.

 

[The Old Master]

glad to see yager struggling on a bad team. otherwise, all the knives would come out.

 

[WickedWrister]

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah I'm not going to gloat about Yager because it's not like McGroarty is doing all that great this year either, but I think a lot of Penguins fans would be disappointed with his performance this year had they kept him. 24 points in 17 games is a pace of 80 points in 57 games, where he had 95 points in 57 games last year. His team is legitimately bad, but that's not stopping other guys on bad teams from producing.

That said, he's also like 25th in the league in terms of PPG, so that's not terrible either. It's disappointing that he fell from 8th to 25th, but it's also kinda to be expected with the loss of talent around him.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Speaking of the whl, McKenna is leading the league in scoring at age 16. The kid is special.

 

[Ulf5]

Kid doesn't sound like a malcontent at all. Sulking? Ryder out to lunch lol.

 

[eXile3]

I think he just didn’t want to live in Winnipeg given its current condition. Had nothing to do with demanding playing time.

That’s not a slight on Winnipeg. I hope whatever the city is going through it gets better.