Penguins Assign Blomqvist to Baby Pens, Recall Nieto and Ponomarev
The Penguins have assigned rookie goalie Joel Blomqvist to their Wilkes-Barre/Scranton farm club. In a pair of corresponding moves, they recalled forwards Vasily Ponomarev and Matt Nieto from the Baby Pens.
Although he endured a rocky outing in his last start, IMHO the 22-year-old Blomqvist was by far the most effective of the Pens’ three goalies this season. He won three of his seven starts and posted the best save percentage (.904) and quality starts percentage (.571) of the bunch. At times, the youngster was borderline brilliant. No easy feat given the ramshackle state of our team defense.
Still, I absolutely think this is the right move at the right time. The Pens need to protect this kid. No matter how much ice-water you’ve got coursing through your veins, facing down an unthinkable number of odd-man breaks and high-danger opportunities has to affect your mindset after a while, to say nothing of how it might screw with your fundamentals. You can only be called upon to pull your team out of the fire so often.
The team handled Marc-André Fleury in much the same manner back in 2003-04.