The Penguins are still relatively stacked with prospects, I'd say Washington, Chicago, and Pittsburgh have the most depth in the league, but there are no guarantees.
I certainly like where I'm sitting fan wise, with a prospective defense of Fleury, Whitney, Welch, Orpik, Nemec, Bissionette, Fernholm, Scuderi.
Up front, Malkin, Salmonsson, Anshakov, Koltsov, Malone, Kraft, Surovy, Moulson, Eaves, Talbot, Bartschi, Ouellet, Dixon all show pretty good offensive talent. Then you have good depth with guys like Murley, Carcillo, Stone, Armstrong, Filewich. Nick Johnson from this year's draft looks like a pretty good player.
In goal, top end talent with Fleury, and decent depth with Caron, Chiodo, Goepfert, Duba, and Brown.
But again, no one knows who will make it and who will not. I certainly don't think that all these Penguin prospects will become NHLers, but it's a pretty impressive assembly of talent and depth at forward, defense, and goaltending that has spurred from good drafting from 1999 on.
Fleury, Whitney, Welch, Orpik, Nemec, Bissionette, Fernholm, Scuderi, Malkin, Salmonsson, Anshakov, Koltsov, Malone, Kraft, Surovy, Moulson, Eaves, Talbot, Bartschi, Ouellet, Dixon, Murley, Carcillo, Stone, Armstrong, Filewich, Johnson, Schneider, Christensen, Caron, Chiodo, Goepfert, Duba, and Brown. That's 34 players, not including the infamous Jagr trio.
Lupaschuk I've pretty much given up on. It's a shame, I sort of feel bad for him, because he is one of the hardest workers, but never seems to put it together. Sivek has returned to the Czech Republic apparently, for the time being. I guess we'll see what happens with the labor stuff, and whether or not he comes back over for camp or not. Beech will almost assuredly be given a good chance to play in the NHL this year, the same way Kraft was last year. People had given up on Kraft, and I'm pretty much at that point with Beech, but we'll see what Olcyzk does with him.
One thing I will say is that, on any team, not all of your best guys will develop. I hope that the Pens will be able to develop a core group of players out of that; guys like Fleury, Whitney, Welch, Orpik, Malone, Koltsov, Malkin, Salmonsson, and then go from there. The cards will have to be played right, but I think the Pens have a good chance of developing this core, and then we'll see what happens from there.
On all teams, free agent signings will have to be made, holes will have to be filled, and probably some of these prospects-maybe even guys consider to be really good-may need to be traded for another need. It's not which group of players is best now, it's which General Manager can utilize his group of assets best to form a good NHL team.