The Penguins brought up some extra forward depth for their afternoon game against Calgary today. The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled winger Rafael Harvey-Pinard from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He’s serving as injury insurance for winger Bryan Rust, who the team relayed (Twitter link) is dealing with a lower-body injury.
The 27-year-old is in his first season with Pittsburgh after signing a one-year, two-way deal with them in free agency following a non-tender from Montreal. While Harvey-Pinard has 84 games of NHL experience (where he has a respectable 17 goals and 14 assists), he wasn’t able to secure a roster spot with Pittsburgh in training camp and passed through waivers unclaimed back in October.
Since then, Harvey-Pinard has played exclusively in the minors with relatively middling numbers offensively. Through 32 games in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, he has seven goals and six assists, along with 27 penalty minutes. While those numbers don’t scream promotion-worthy, he can play on both wings, giving the team a bit of versatility should they need to call upon him to play.
Pittsburgh had one open roster spot, so they didn’t need to make a demotion or IR placement to make room for Harvey-Pinard on the roster. However, their group is now full at 23 players.