“None of us want to be here in the situation we’re in. But we are,” explained Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan. The Penguins’ odds of making the NHL playoffs already hit zero in early March, as per Money Puck. Still, losing 7-3 to the Buffalo Sabers was quite the blow for Sullivan and his boys. Even Sidney Crosby setting a record didn’t lift the mood.

“It’s hard right now after a loss like that,” despite beating Wayne Gretzky’s one-point-per-game average in his 20th season. Desperate to make a change, the Penguins called up top AHL prospects Ville Koivunen and Rutger McGroarty. Thankfully, it worked. Besides helping beat the Ottawa Senators 1-0, McGroarty spread laughter throughout the locker room after revealing the story of his unfortunate but hilarious mishap.

In a room full of reporters, the Pittsburgh Penguins player asked his own question. “You see me playing with two different skates?” McGroarty asked; someone in the room responded with a ‘No.’ So one of the leading forwards in the Penguins pipeline continued. “It’s my last shift. I was playing with two different skates. My skate broke,” said the Penguins star.

Yet, Rutger McGroarty must have found how his primary pair broke to be a comedy of errors. “Carl, like, took a slapshot… It, like, hit off my skate. And I thought my blade just fell out,” elaborated the 21-year-old. However, he was surprised and amused to find out the “whole holder, like, snapped” and immediately rushed off to find his backup pair. It was a pair he had “baked” but never used.

It’s no secret that NHL players are quite particular about changing their gear. Take Jakob Chychrun, for example. The Capitals players chose to wear his teammate’s gloves instead of new ones. “The gloves I was wearing for a long time, the company went to a different palm factory, and I just didn’t like it,” said Chychrun. Thankfully, the young Pittsburgh Penguins star has no such trouble. Yet, there could be another reason behind the Penguins being so relaxed.

No Pressure for the Pittsburgh Penguins

This isn’t how the Penguins thought their season would go when they started the 2024-25 NHL season. Not making it to the playoffs wasn’t part of their plan. Unfortunately, this is what it’s come down to, and that Coach Mike Sullivan is acutely aware of. “We understand the circumstance we’re in. It’s not an easy circumstance,” he said after their loss to the Sabres.

However, even this unfortunate outcome has had some impact on the team. With the playoffs out of the question, the Pittsburgh Penguins may be adopting a more experimental approach at the tail end of the regular season. Calling up youngsters like Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen could be a hint that the team is trying something new with the time they have left.

Playing on the Penguins’ NHL roster, alongside icons like Sidney Crosby, would only benefit the young hockey stars. In fact, the experience they earn in the NHL could be game-changing before they return to the AHL for the Calder Cup playoffs in mid-April. Meanwhile, Coach Sullivan could also be experimenting with different combinations.

He confessed to liking how the squad performed with the AHL players. “I thought our team did a better job at limiting some of the high, high-quality looks that [Jarry] has been faced with the prior couple of games,” the Pittsburgh Penguins coach told the reporters. And maybe it’s because there’s no pressure to qualify for the playoffs that’s why McGroarty could laugh about the mishap.