The Penguins assigned defense prospect Niclas Almari from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to Lukko of the top Finnish league, Wilkes-Barre announced on Wednesday.
Almari, 23, was the Penguins' fifth-round pick in 2016.
Almari, a left-handed shot, struggled to crack Wilkes-Barre's lineup this season, which already included P.O Joseph, Juuso Riikola, Cam Lee, Matt Bartkowski and Chris Bigras as defensemen who naturally play on the left side. Almari only played in 11 AHL games this season, scoring one goal and one assist.
His lone goal came in the season opener against Lehigh Valley, and stood to be the game-winner:
With Almari not playing in a game since Dec. 14, the Penguins assigned him to Wheeling last month, where he played six games and recorded four assists, before he was again recalled and sat as a healthy scratch.
This was Almari's second season playing in Wilkes-Barre. His first full season was in 2019-20, where he was a regular in the lineup, scoring one goal and six assists in 51 games before COVID cut the season short. Both then-head coach Mike Vellucci and director of player development Scott Young spoke to me about Almari needing to play with more confidence after that season.
"His talent is very good," Vellucci said of Almari. "He's big, he can skate, he has a really hard shot, he's smart hockey-sense wise, he's a good player. He just need a little more confidence and just needs to play a little more in this kind of environment. He showed a lot of strides. His talent is something that stands out."
When I spoke with Almari that year, he talked about being worried about making mistakes at the AHL level.
"You have to be so alert of everything," Almari told me near the end of his rookie season. "That's the biggest difference from the European game style. If you make one mistake back home, it doesn't come back and bite you in the ass."
Almari spent the 2020-21 season playing in the Finnish league, a move aimed at getting him the most playing time possible given the AHL's late start. During the Penguins' development camp this past offseason, he set his sights high on his goals for the year.
"I'm going to try to make the team, the big boys," he said. "And if not, the goal is to be one of the top defensemen in the AHL."
Almari appeared in the Penguins' preseason, and played 17:57, recording two shots on goal, one hit and one blocked shot in the preseason opener in Buffalo.
"We really like Nic's game," Mike Sullivan old me after that game. "He's another guy that's evolving this year, he's playing a much more assertive game. He's playing with much more confidence. I think he's picked up a step foot-speed-wise, he's a little bit stronger. So we're excited about the progress that he's made."
This was the last year of Almari's entry-level contract, and he's set to be a restricted free agent this offseason. It's possible that he could put together an impressive showing for the remainder of this season in Finland and earn another shot with the Penguins, but it seems more likely that Wednesday's move marks the end of his time with the Penguins.
