Penguins prospect Owen Pickering and his 'war at the dinner table'

Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Owen Pickering is in a fight.

I’m not talking about a brawl against an opponent, or his battle to win a roster spot with the NHL club. I’m talking about his own personal war.

Against food.

“It was war sometimes at the dinner table,” Pickering told me with a laugh during a recent appearance on 105.9 The X.

Pickering’s biggest challenge since being drafted in the first round two years ago has been to put on as much weight as he can. The Penguins took a chance on the 6-foot-4, 179-pound defenseman in the 2022 draft because of his upside, his skill and his personal maturity. But his spindly frame was far from NHL-ready.

Now after two years of attempting to put on weight, the 20-year-old from Manitoba is starting to fill out.

“I came in at 6-foot-5, 203 pounds a few weeks ago,” Pickering said. “I put on 18 pounds of weight this summer. It was a battle every day. I kind of hated food by the end of it. There are all kinds of tips and tricks. But it definitely is worth it. When you get on the ice against NHL players and you feel more comfortable in net-front battles and trying to kill plays in the corner, there are just things where you need that brute strength. I feel like I’ve been lacking that in the past.”

The routine hasn’t been easy for Pickering to follow.

• Six or seven meals a day

• Weight-gaining shakes

• Two dinners at night

• Olive oil shots

“(Olive oil) is right up there in terms of food-calorie-density-wise. So I was putting that in my mass-gainer shakes. I’d also just shoot it sometimes, which I wouldn’t recommend. It’s pretty gross,” Pickering explained with disdain. “It’s a good 15 to 30 minutes of aftertaste. It doesn’t go away. I’ve tried brushing my teeth, I’ve tried everything.”

Pickering’s favorite food is barbecue salmon. That’s something his mother made for him in large quantities during this offseason as he tried to pack on pounds. However, even that craving waned as time went along, given that he was often ingesting it twice a night.

“I would get home and eat dinner at a regular time, like 6 p.m. The first time, it’s absolutely unreal. Barbecue salmon is the best thing ever,” Pickering said. “Then about an hour-and-a-half or two hours later, I have to eat it again, and it looks like the most disgusting thing ever.”

Pickering said he’d even have trouble generating saliva to moisten his mouth in order to chew and swallow.

“The second dinner was definitely the biggest battle of the day, because you’ve got to put water in your mouth before you even put food in your mouth. You’re barely chewing and you just try and get it down,” Pickering added.

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The diet and training routine seems to be working, and not just in terms of his net-front play. Pickering says where he is feeling the most benefit from his added pounds is in his explosiveness.

“The heavier I am, for the past three years, the better I feel on the ice,” Pickering said. “The more weight I have, the faster I am. So I feel like that all comes from lower body strength. … I can skate well. But every time that I put on weight, my lower body is nowhere near the strength that it can be in the future. That excites me.”

This is the first preseason in which Pickering has been able to compete in games thanks to injuries that limited him in previous years. He was plus-1 and had an assist during the Pens 5-2 win in Ottawa on Sunday night. During the team’s preseason home debut last Tuesday (a 3-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres) he was also a plus-1.

“The past couple of years it’s been difficult, and being injured and not being able to participate. So to kind of get that first (game) out of the way, it was a privilege,” Pickering said. “Even just the anthem was something that I won’t forget.”

Pickering’s training efforts haven’t been lost on head coach Mike Sullivan.

“I definitely think he’s picked up a step, foot-wise, and has really picked up some strength in his game,” Sullivan said earlier in training camp.

In all likelihood, Pickering will spend most of this season — his first as a full-time pro — in the AHL with Wilkes-Barre. There he can add some polish to his game, and perhaps a few more pounds.

Maybe there he can find something that’s close to as palatable as Mom’s barbecue salmon if he is still going to be eating twice a night.

Listen: Owen Pickering joined Tim Benz on 105.9 The X