One of the Penguins' most intriguing prospects is under contract.
Sergei Murashov on Tuesday signed his three-year entry-level contract, an indication that he's making the jump to North America for next season.
PENGUINS
Sergei Murashov signs his entry-level contract on Tuesday.
Other recently-signed prospects like Brayden Yager, Tanner Howe and Harrison Brunicke aren't eligible for the AHL yet and so are expected to return to junior, in which cases their contracts will not yet begin, slide, and not count toward the 50-contract limit. Murashov, coming from Russia, is different. There's no signing him and loaning him to a KHL club. He's coming over.
Murashov, 20, was the Penguins' fourth-round pick in 2022. The 6-foot-2, 172-pound netminder catches with his right hand, somewhat uncommon for goaltenders. He's coming off a season in the Russian junior league, recording a 2.02 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage in 34 games. He saw some time recalled to the KHL and fared well in his six games, recording a 1.84 goals-against average and a .925 save percentage.
When Murashov was in Cranberry, Pa. for the Penguins' development camp this past month, he said there were three "different ways" he could go this coming season -- re-sign in the KHL with his former club Lokomotiv, sign with a new KHL club ... or move to America.
"I need to make a decision where I'm going, because I have different ways for my next season," Murashov explained early in camp. "Development camp for me is also to watch how it works in the USA, how Pittsburgh looks like, and so on."
Murashov went on to be the standout of the Penguins' development camp, posting two shutouts in his first two games of the four-on-four scrimmage, and conceding a goal to only Yager in the championship game.
"Murashov, off the top of my head, is the one that stood out," director of player development Tom Kostopoulos said. "It was such a nice surprise for the development staff to find out he was coming and then see him out here."
With Murashov coming over, that creates an interesting situation for the Penguins in net. They just have too many goaltenders. Behind Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic at the NHL level, Murashov is joining Joel Blomqvist, Filip Larsson and Taylor Gauthier under contract and capable of playing a big role at the AHL level.
It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Murashov and Blomqvist are the two at the top of that group of prospects, and could conceivably be two halves of a 1A/1B-type of tandem. But that's also the kind of situation Blomqvist started out in last season, and the Penguins ended up trading his partner Magnus Hellberg midseason in order to force Blomqvist into a true starter's role to further his development. Beyond those two, Larsson surely didn't leave the top Swedish league this summer in order to end up in the ECHL, and the reigning ECHL Goaltender of the Year Gauthier really doesn't deserve to be back in Wheeling either.
It'll all make for some training camp battles to watch in September.
