With the Penguins’ 2021-22 season coming to a quick ending in the first round of the playoffs, the Tribune-Review is offering Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 55 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until the 2022-23 season — with the organization, from mid-level prospect Niclas Almari to top-six winger Jason Zucker.
Niclas Almari
Position: Defenseman
Shoots: Left
Age: 24
Height: 6-foot-1
Weight: 181 pounds
2021-22 AHL statistics: 13 games, two points (one goal, one assist)
2021-22 ECHL statistics: Six games, four points (zero goals, four assists)
2021-22 Liiga statistics: 15 games, two points (zero goals, two assists)
Contract: Third year of a three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $809,167. Pending restricted free agent this upcoming offseason.
(Note: Almari is eligible for salary arbitration.)
Acquired: Fifth-round draft pick (No. 151 overall), June 25, 2016
Last season: The surplus of NHL-caliber left-handed defensemen the Penguins boasted didn’t just impact their NHL roster.
It had an effect on their lineups at the American Hockey League (AHL) and ECHL levels too.
And more often than not, that effect came at the expense of Niclas Almari.
That’s to say he had a hard time finding playing time because there were so many viable port-side blueliners ahead of him on the depth chart.
With Brian Dumoulin, Mike Matheson and Marcus Pettersson entrenched on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ blue line, that left the likes of high-end prospect P.O Joseph and veteran Juuso Riikola to take the top two spots on the left side of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s blue line for most of the 2021-22 campaign.
As a result, Almari saw little time on the ice at the AHL level last season.
His season got off to a good start. In fact, he scored the game-winning goal — his only goal of the season at any level — in the season opener, a 2-1 home win for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton against the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Despite that early success, Almari was in and out of the lineup almost every other game until Nov. 12. After that, he did not see the ice again until Dec. 11, a stretch amplified by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins as a whole dealing with an outbreak of covid-19 that prompted several games to be postponed.
Almari appeared in three AHL games during December and was eventually assigned to the Wheeling Nailers on Jan. 21.
After appearing in six ECHL games, Almari was recalled to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton by Jan. 30 but did not appear in any AHL games before being assigned to Luuko of the Liiga in his native Finland.
Helping that team qualify for the postseason, Almari did not record any points in seven playoff games and was returned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton by April 15.
After playing in two more regular season games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Almari was a healthy scratch for all six of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s AHL postseason contests.
In all, Almari played in 31 games during the 2021-22 season, with the bulk of those taking place in Finland.
The future: Once upon a time, Almari looked like he had taken the initial necessary steps to reach the NHL. During the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, he appeared in 51 games and adapted to the North American game well as a stable, low-event bottom-pairing defenseman.
But after spending all of the 2020-21 campaign in Finland and struggling to even find playing time in 2021-22, it’s fair to suggest he isn’t likely to be re-signed by the Penguins.
As a fifth-round pick, he was always going to be facing an uphill battle to reach the NHL, even if he didn’t have the poor fortune of playing a position with an abundance of depth. And at age 24, he’s getting a little ripe to be looked at as a prospect.
Throw in the fact that he was drafted by previous management and current management has already taken steps to move on from prospects that it absorbed, it certainly looks like Almari is bound to move on.
