Penguins A to Z: Owen Pickering's time will come
With the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2022-23 season coming to an end without any postseason action, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 49 individuals signed to an NHL contract – including those whose deals do not begin until next season — with the organization, from mid-level prospect Corey Andonovski to top-six winger Jason Zucker.
This series will publish every weekday leading into the NHL Draft on June 28-29.
(Note: All contract information courtesy of Cap Friendly.)
Owen Pickering
Position: Defenseman
Shoots: Left
Age: 19
Height: 6-foot-4
Weight: 185 pounds
2022-23 AHL statistics: Eight games, zero points (zero goals, zero assists)
2022-23 WHL statistics: 61 games, 45 points (nine goals, 36 assists)
Contract: Signed to a three-year contract with a salary cap hit of $918,333. His contract will slide – or begin – once he starts his first full professional season
Acquired: First-round draft pick (No. 21 overall), July 7, 2022
Last season: Owen Pickering didn’t merely plan to attend his first professional training camp in September.
His ambitions were greater than that.
“My mentality was as soon as I was drafted to a team before this was to try to make that team in the fall,” Pickering said in Montreal’s Bell Centre the night he was drafted. “That’s kind of the mentality that I have and I’m going to carry that forward.”
As it was, the Penguins already had a logjam of incumbent left-handed defensemen. Further, an injury hobbled Pickering for most of training camp and all of the preseason, leading to him being re-assigned to his junior team, the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos, by Oct. 2.
Serving as that team’s captain and primarily skating on the top pairing, Pickering led all Swift Current defensemen in scoring while being selected as a first-team All-Star in the WHL’s Central Division.
His best stretch of the season came on Feb. 28 and March 4 when he had three points in consecutive games (one goal, five assists).
With the Broncos missing the postseason, Pickering got his first taste of the professional game when he signed an amateur tryout contract with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on March 30.
Primarily deployed on the AHL Penguins’ second pairing with veteran Taylor Fedun, Pickering went scoreless in eight games.
The future: Pickering will likely return to Swift Current for the 2023-24 season. The Penguins still have quite a few left-handed defensemen – Marcus Pettersson, P.O Joseph and Ty Smith – in the fold and there’s no reason to rush Pickering to the NHL.
Given the lack of competition for the designation, Pickering is arguably the Penguins’ top prospect in the organization. And as a former first-round pick, he’s something of a unicorn given how frequently the Penguins have traded away first-round selections over the past decade-plus.
A large body, Pickering has the skating ability of a smaller man. Capable of playing physically on defense, he also offers an ability to join – or even initiate – the rush offensively. Blessed with a strong point shot, Pickering possesses the cliched “high hockey IQ” and reads the ice like a novel.
Pickering’s time will come. Just not yet.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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