Penguins A to Z: Ty Glover will be a long-term project

With the Penguins’ 2021-22 season coming to a quick ending in the first round of the playoffs, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 54 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.

Ty Glover

Position: Center

Shoots: Left

Age: 21

Height: 6-foot-3

Weight: 200 pounds

2021-22 AHL statistics: Two games, zero points (zero goals, zero assists)

2021-22 NCAA statistics: 39 games, 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists)

Contract: Entering the first year of a three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $859,167. Pending restricted free agent in the 2025 offseason.

Acquired: Undrafted free agent signing, March 29, 2022

Last season: It’s a pretty common tale with this franchise.

The Penguins haven’t exactly had a surplus of draft picks over the past 15 years or so. In the name of “winning now,” they’ve traded away a lot of early-round draft picks to add players who can help the NHL roster in the immediate sense.

That method has been justified repeatedly by the Penguins’ three most recent Stanley Cup championships.

But the bill on that approach has long since been due and the Penguins have tried to find ways to offset that expense by adding undrafted players, particularly through the NCAA ranks.

It was an tactic pursued thoroughly by previous general managers Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford. And it has only increased in the still-young tenure of current general manager Ron Hextall.

There have been some considerable successes such as Conor Sheary, Zach Aston-Reese and Casey DeSmith.

And there have been some flat-out misses such as Ethan Prow, Eric Hartzell and Paul Thompson.

It will take a while before anyone can fairly figure out which column Ty Glover goes in.

But clearly, the Penguins saw a lot of value in him by extending him a three-year entry-level contract.

What they saw in Glover isn’t immediately clear just by looking at his base offensive statistics. Primarily deployed on the left wing of the Western Michigan’s second line while also getting some power-play time, Glover was ninth on the team in scoring as a sophomore.

Perhaps the finest moment of Glover’s season, and his NCAA career, came during a 4-2 neutral site win against perennial powerhouse North Dakota in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) semifinal round. He scored twice in a comeback victory.

After Glover helped Western Michigan record the first NCAA tournament in program history (a 2-1 overtime victory against Northeastern on March 25, his collegiate career came to an end two days later with a 3-0 loss to Minnesota.

Only 48 hours later, Glover signed his NHL contract and also signed an amateur tryout contract (ATO) to complete the 2021-22 season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. After appearing in two regular season AHL games, Glover was a healthy scratch for all six of the Penguins’ postseason contests.

The future: Glover will be a long-term project.

As Chris Peters of Daily Faceoff suggested, the Penguins were likely aggressive in signing him after a mostly inert sophomore season in order to avoid him having a stronger junior season and attracting more attention from NHL scouts.

There is plenty of raw base talents to like in Glover, a native of Salford, England, who grew up in London, Ont. He can skate well for a player with size and has some subtle scoring touch around the cage. And as evidenced by his team-leading 48 penalty minutes, he’s not afraid to mix it up. With his dimensions, he can be an effective net-front player as well as a strong presence on the wall as a bottom-six forward.

But it will take some time and plenty of refinement for him to get to that point.

Follow the Penguins all season long.