First in a series
The Penguins only have four choices in next week's entry draft, at least for the moment.
They are, however, scheduled to pick in the fourth round for the first time since 2016.
History says that could be a good thing for them, because they've plucked a number of productive players out of the prospects pool during that round over the years.
What follows is a look at all of them, with performance-based rankings of those who played in the NHL.
The rankings are entirely subjective and based on a player's achievements over the course of his NHL career, with extra emphasis on what he accomplished while with the Penguins.
RW Mark Recchi (1988) -- When only one player selected in this round has made it into the Hockey Hall of Fame, even though he spent the majority of his career elsewhere, it's a pretty easy call to give him the top spot.
RW Rob Brown (1986) -- Skated as if he were dragging anvils through quicksand, but had marvelous hands and thought the game more like Mario Lemieux than any other linemate Lemieux ever had.
LW Ryan Malone (1999) -- Still the biggest homegrown star in franchise history.
D Michal Rozsival (1996) -- Rarely a fan favorite during any of his four stops around the NHL, beginning with 237 games with the Penguins, but he lasted long enough to appear in 963 regular-season NHL games and to win two Stanley Cups with Chicago.
C Mark Johnson (1977) -- He'll always be best-known for his role on Team USA's "Miracle On Ice" squad in 1980, but his arrival after the Games gave Penguins partisans a good, albeit short-lived, reason to get excited.
RW Tyler Kennedy (2004) -- A tenacious forechecker who played a high-energy style and could score goals in bunches.
D Chris Tamer (1990) -- Tamer was a rugged presence on the Penguins' blue line before a decline in playing time prompted him to ask for a trade, a request that was honored when he was sent to the New York Rangers.
LW Tom Kuhnhackl (2010) -- An effective role player who did his part to make the Penguins' championships in 2016 and 2017 possible.
D Mario Faubert (1974) -- A broken leg scuttled what had been a very promising career for a guy with good offensive abilities.
C Sam Lafferty (2014) -- He has the potential to move up quite a few spots on this list if he performs to the considerable potential he flashed during his rookie season.
D Dennis Owchar (1973) -- A big hitter at a time when any forward -- especially one caught with his head down anywhere on the ice -- was fair game to be separated from his senses.
D Yvon Labre (1969) -- Labre spent the bulk of his career with the Capitals after breaking in with the Penguins. Washington retired his No. 7, which probably said a lot more about how wretched the early teams there were than it did about his accomplishments.
RW Michel Ouellet (2000) -- He was a fairly effective goal-scorer, particularly on the power play, but became expendable as the Penguins put together the club that won the Stanley Cup in 2009.
G Frank Pietrangelo (1983) -- Pietrangelo stopped 358 shots in the playoffs over the course of his NHL career, but only one of them is known in franchise history as "The Save."
LW Tomas Surovy (2001) -- He filled an unspectacular niche for a few seasons as the Penguins were bottoming out in the middle of the first decade of this millennium.
C Ron Lalonde (1972) -- Like Labre, Lalonde entered the NHL with the Penguins, but played only 106 of his 397 career NHL games here before being traded to Washington.
D Norm Schmidt (1981) -- Showed some offensive ability on a team that was rebuilding, but not enough to secure a long-term position on the depth chart.
LW Luca Caputi (2007) -- There was a time when he looked to have great potential as a power forward. That time passed quickly.
D Alex Grant (2007) -- Grant had a pretty promising future before a preseason wrist injury sabotaged his career.
LW/D Paul Bissonnette (2003) -- He's become better known as a media personality that he was as a player, but Bissonnette almost claimed a spot on the Penguins' defense the year he was drafted, which was pretty much unheard-of for almost any defenseman, let alone one selected so late.
D Tony Feltrin (1980) -- Made it into 38 games with some bad Penguins clubs in the early 1980s before turning up in 10 more with the New York Rangers.
D Todd Nelson (1989) -- He's gone on to be more successful as a coach than he was as a defenseman, having made it into just one game with the Penguins and two more with Washington.
LW Connie Forey (1970) -- Don't remember him? You probably shouldn't. Forey appeared in his only four NHL games with St. Louis before making a one-game cameo with the Chicago Cougars of the World Hokey Association.
G Greg Redquest (1976) -- Redquest's performance in his lone NHL appearance was nothing special, but being summoned from a card game to serve as a backup for a game at Maple Leaf Gardens after Dunc Wilson injured his back secured Redquest's place in franchise lore.
The fourth-rounders who never made it to the NHL, in no particular order.
D Daniel Fernhold (2002)
RW Mark Teevens (1984)
D Tommi Lehonen (2005)
C Nathan Moon (2008)
LW Risto Kurkinen (1987)
RW Nick Petersen (2009)
LW Stuart Younger (1975)
G Sean Maguire (2012)
C Matia Marcantuoni (2012)
D Ryan Segalla (2013)
D Ryan Jones (2016)
G Scott Myers (1998)
C Oleg Belov (1995)
D Gerald Methe (1971)
C Joe Tamminen (1991)
LW Alexandre Mathieu (1997)
D Todd Klassen (1992)
C Ben Eaves (2001)
D Tom O'Connor (1994)
D Jonas Andersson-Junkka (1993)
D Brian Cross (1979)
LW Shane Pearsall (1978)
Next: Ranking the Penguins' third-round choices.
