One way or another, Rutger McGroarty will be on a playoff team.
But it remains to be seen if he’ll be competing for the Stanley Cup.
Or the Calder Cup.
At the moment, it would appear the latter is a surer bet.
That’s because the Pittsburgh Penguins have yet to qualify for a postseason berth, while the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins squared away that business back on March 20.
Also, there is the matter of McGroarty currently being assigned to the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate.
Either way, he has a simple binary pursuit on his mind.
“Whenever I’m (with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton), I want to help that team win,” McGroarty said in Cranberry on Sunday. “And whenever I’m here (in Pittsburgh), I want to help this team win.”
McGroarty has split his second professional season with each team, having been shuffled between the opposite ends of Pennsylvania repeatedly throughout 2024-25. Per the AHL’s website, McGroarty has been recalled or assigned on eight different occasions.
Such is life for a rookie who is still developing and doesn’t require waivers in order to be assigned to a minor league affiliate.
“Going up and down, I definitely have an impact on (management’s) decision,” McGroarty said. “But at the end of the day, that’s their decision to make and they want to put the best team on the ice that can win.”
McGroarty, who turned 22 on Monday, has appeared in 21 NHL contests this season and posted five points (two goals, three assists) while averaging 11:46 of ice time, predominantly while skating on the third line.
“A lot of my ice time is five on five,” McGroarty said when auditing his play at the NHL level. “So, just try to be the best five-on-five player I can be. And making an impact whenever my name is called, if that’s playing physical, forcing a turnover on the forecheck or getting a puck out on the wall. Or just maybe stirring stuff up. I think overall, I can impact the game in a lot of ways. Just trying to do whatever I can to help the team.”
With Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, his production has been more prolific, particularly since he has been in a more prominent role among that team’s top-six forwards. Over 25 AHL games, he has 26 points (seven goals, 19 assists) entering Friday.
(Time on ice statistics are not maintained publicly in the AHL.)
“It’s pretty easy when I’m playing with the players I’m playing with,” McGroarty said of his AHL production. “It’s a really deep lineup down there. Overall, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing with. Everybody can make an impact on the game. Production-wise, penalty kill-wise, special teams-wise, no matter what it is, I feel like everybody can make an impact there. For me, just sticking to my roots, sticking to who I am as a person and a player.”
Entering this season, McGroarty was one of the more scrutinized players in the organization.
The Penguins had acquired the former first-round draft pick from the Winnipeg Jets in a high-profile trade in August of 2024, and he offered plenty of intrigue late last season with a recall in the final weeks of the 2024-25 campaign.
There were hopes, at least externally, that McGroarty would largely be the face of a youth movement for the organization. But injuries derailed those ambitions in some fashion.
An undisclosed ailment he suffered before training camp began landed him on the season-opening injured non-roster list. That malady kept him sidelined until mid-November, when he was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Then in January, he wound up on injured reserve after suffering a concussion during a practice with the NHL club.
“The injury during camp definitely affected me,” McGroarty said. “But I feel like I’ve done well coming back from that injury. Then, the concussion was at a brutal time. But I feel like every time I’ve come back from an injury, I came back hard and ready to go.”
Has any of this gone as he had hoped this season?
“Obviously, coming into the season, I wanted to play 82 games and score 82 goals and go 82-0,” McGroarty quipped. “That’s something all high-level athletes want to do.
“Life is just ups and downs. Hockey is ups and downs. Just continuing to stick to who I am as a player and being confident.”
Note: The Penguins assigned rookie forward Avery Hayes to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Thursday. … The Penguins canceled a scheduled practice Friday.