While the Pittsburgh Penguins have been making plenty of smaller moves at the NHL level since the start of unrestricted free agency on Tuesday, they've also been shoring up depth at the developmental levels of the organization.
On Wednesday, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) Penguins - Pittsburgh's AHL affiliate - re-signed goaltender Taylor Gauthier and signed forward Aidan McDonough, both to one-year AHL contracts.
Gauthier, 24, has been excellent over parts of the past three seasons within the Penguins' organization. At the ECHL level, he won ECHL Goaltender of the Year honors in 2023-24, when he posted a .923 save percentage and 2.23 goals-against average to go along with four shutouts and a 24-16-2 record.
He was also excellent in split duties with fellow goaltending prospect Sergei Murashov this past season in Wheeling - even improving his numbers from the year prior - as he bolstered a .928 save percentage and a 2.06 goals-against average. Gauthier figures to, potentially, tandem with Murashov again next season, but this time, at the AHL level.
At the AHL level so far, Gauthier is 10-5-7 with a .908 save percentage and 2.77 goals against average. He will, likely, battle for a role with the WBS Penguins, along with Murashov and Filip Larsson, who is under contract through the end of the 2025-26 season.
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McDonough, 25, captained the Northeastern University Huskies from 2019-23 and recorded 66 goals and 124 points in 124 games. A former seventh-round pick (195th overall) of the Vancouver Canucks in 2019, the 6-foot-2, 201-pound forward appeared in six NHL games for the Canucks in 2022-23, registering one point.
He spent the last two seasons in the AHL, first with the Abbotsford Canucks and next with the Charlotte Checkers. Last season for the Checkers, he recorded 10 goals and 16 points in just 16 games, as a broken leg resulting from a fight kept him out for most of the season.
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Feature image credit: Bob Frid - Imagn Images