Over the past few years the Pittsburgh Penguins have reaped the benefits of a healthy minor league system with players like Conor Sheary, Matt Murray, Bryan Rust, Brian Dumoulin (and more!) all emerged from apprenticeships in the American Hockey League to help the NHL Pens win Stanley Cups. That’s fun!
Fast forward to 2019-20 and several players from Wilkes-Barre were thrust into NHL roles due to a historically awful season of injuries for the Pens. Sam Lafferty made the most of it, shining in some of his debut games and basically getting to stick around in the NHL for most of the season as a result of his strong early performance.