Jim Rutherford still doesn't know how many players the Penguins will be allowed to have at their training camp this summer.
Heck, with all of the uncertainty spawned by the coronavirus pandemic, he can't even be positive that a camp will even happen.
But he does know that when the Penguins put together their postseason roster, highly regarded prospect Nathan Legare won't be on it.
Rutherford said Monday that Legare, a right winger who was the Penguins' third-round draft choice in 2019, will not be invited to the camp that is scheduled to precede their qualifying-round series against Montreal.
Left winger Samuel Poulin, the Penguins' No. 1 choice last summer, has been invited to participate in the small-group skates now being held at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, Rutherford said, although it has not been determined whether he will have a spot on the postseason roster.
"Poulin is under consideration, and we've made him aware of that," he said. "We've talked to him, made him aware of the voluntary skates and told him that he is welcome to come to those.
"We hope that everybody who comes to the voluntary skates can come to training camp, but we have to wait to see what the official guidelines are. We have an idea of who we want to bring (to camp), but we have to wait and see what that number is."
"That number" is the roster limit the league is expected to impose on camps. So far, teams have not been told what that total is, or how many players they will be allowed to have involved in the competition that follows.
The NHL's most recent proposal has been to limit teams to 28 forwards and defensemen and an unlimited number of goalies on the 50-member party clubs will be allowed to send to the "hub" cities where games will be played, but that has has to be negotiated with the NHL Players' Association.
Rutherford added that teams don't even know if they will be permitted to replace players who might be lost during camp or games because of injury or illness by drawing on a pool of "Black Aces" who would practice for the duration of the club's playoff run, even if they are forced to do so in the team's home area, rather than the hub city.
"You would think that's the way it's going to go," he said. "But we don't know."
The only thing that seems to be sure at this point is that Rutherford, himself a former NHL goaltender, intends to have plenty of guys who play that position on hand for whatever is ahead.
"We'll have to see how the health of the goalies are and how it shakes down at camp," he said. "But it would be a minimum of four that we would want to carry."
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