For the first time in a long, long time, the Pittsburgh Penguins have a prospect pool with legitimate names in it.

Whether they’ve played NHL minutes this season like Owen Pickering, Ben Kindel, or Sergei Murashov, or are still working their way up like Tanner Howe, Bill Zonnon, and Will Horcoff, there’s a lot of young talent to keep an eye on.

That pool isn’t just limited to players currently playing in North America, either.

Vasily Ponomarev was a part of the Jake Guentzel trade back in at the trade deadline in 2024 with the Carolina Hurricanes. It was the first big “sell” by general manager Kyle Dubas in Pittsburgh, and for his prized winger, the Penguins fetched five total assets.

Ponomarev represented a trio of prospects Dubas had brought in with the trade, along with forwards Ville Koivunen (then playing in Finland) and Cruz Lucius (still playing NCAA hockey). But at the time of the trade, Ponomarev was the most NHL-ready prospect the Penguins had acquired.

After all, he was the only one who had actually skated on NHL ice so far in his career. At 21, Ponomarev has skated in a pair of games with the Hurricanes, including tallying an assist on the game-tying goal in the third period and scoring an empty net goal in his NHL debut.

In the AHL that year, Ponomarev totaled nine goals and 21 assists (30 points) in 43 games, split between the Chicago Wolves and Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Penguins.

Later that season after he was acquired at the deadline, the Penguins planned on calling him up down the stretch, but the Moscow native had suffered an injury in the AHL, missing out on that potential promotion.

Last season, Ponomarev had three different call-ups with the Penguins, playing in seven total games. He averaged 10:02 a night and did not record a point and was a -1 with two penalty minutes.

In his final, three-game call up, the Penguins deployed him mostly at center. He took 22 face-offs, winning 13 of them. He also saw a slight increase in ice time as then-Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan had done something rare, and turned over the lineup into younger hands.

In the AHL last season with WBS, Ponomarev posted 15 goals and 26 assists (41 points) in 55 games. Heading into the offseason and now 23, the Penguins penciled Ponomarev in as someone who could compete for a full-time job in the NHL.

But Ponomarev instead opted to return to his native Russia. Rumors of his interest were sparked when his KHL rights were traded from Spartak to Avangard, with the acquiring team’s press release and comments making it sound like Ponomarev would actually suit up for them.

Sure enough, days later, that news was confirmed. Ponomarev was back to the KHL, where he had briefly played during the 2021-22 season.

It felt like a missed opportunity for both sides. For the Penguins, they missed out on a chance to further evaluate a prospect that had a decent chance to play serious NHL minutes this year. He could have helped the new-look bottom six that the Penguins worked on this offseason, and organizations never like losing prospects for nothing.

But for Ponomarev, this was probably his best chance yet at securing an NHL gig. Sure, he was not guaranteed a spot in Pittsburgh’s lineup to open the season, but he would have been given plenty of chances to make his case in training camp.

Along with the depth and roster shuffling, the Penguins made a change at head coach. After Mike Sullivan and the team parted ways, the Penguins replaced him with Dan Muse. The first-time head coach had a track record of developing young talent, which made him a home run hire for a team looking to retool their roster and infuse prospects into the lineup.

For Ponomarev, the hiring of a new head coach, especially one with a player development résumé like Muse’s, could have been his key to getting in the lineup more. And the chances were there.

This year’s Penguins team has featured their biggest youth wave in years, and chances were certainly there for the taking. Koivunen, one of the players who came over with Ponomarev, made the team out of camp. And even though he was re-assigned to the AHL a few games in, he has since been recalled and has played ten games for the Penguins this year.

The biggest example, though, is Ben Kindel. The 11th overall pick from this past June made the surprise jump from juniors to the NHL right away, impressing in camp to earn a nine-game trial and showing enough to convince the Penguins to burn the first year of his entry-level contract.

Plus, with the amount of injuries that the Penguins have suffered at the forward position, he likely would have received a call-up by now.

At any rate, Ponomarev has since embarked on a KHL season with Avangard, where he is in the first of a three-year contract he signed with the club.

In 15 games in the KHL this season, Ponomarev has five goals and three assists for eight points. He has four penalty minutes and a +3 rating to his name.

He ranks tenth on the team in points, but among players who have double digit games played, he ranks sixth with 0.53 points per game. Unfortunately for Ponomarev, an undisclosed injury has kept him sidelined for a decent chunk of the season.

Per Elite Prospects, Sunday will mark one whole month since Ponomarev has played a game. An undisclosed injury has sidelined one of Avangard Omsk’s better point producers, who have gone 4-4 in his absence.

He’s been an effective two-way player in Russia so far this season, and it will be interesting to see how he handles coming back from injury and getting back into KHL play.

Since he still has Penguins ties, he’s a name we will have to check in on every now and then, even if he can’t impact the organization this season.

It’s always possible that he comes back to North America at some point. The Penguins still own his NHL rights, and Ponomarev is considered a restricted free agent by NHL standards.

We saw a similar situation play out with Filip Hallander a few years ago. After a few years in the AHL and only a few NHL games to his name, he left North America to pursue other opportunities. But the Penguins remained interested, and after two years playing in Sweden, Hallander used his NHL-out clause in his Swedish deal to sign with the Penguins again.

Maybe that happens with Ponomarev down the line.