Thursday, 17 January 2013 16:23

Written by Dave Molinari

There were, Ray Shero said late this afternoon, some tough calls while the Penguins' decision-makers were settling on the makeup of their 23-man roster for the start of the regular season.

One of them was concluding that rookie winger Beau Bennett should return to the Penguins' farm team in Wilkes-Barre, even though he has been highly productive in the American Hockey League and turned in a strong performance during a four-day stay at training camp.

"We've liked what we've seen from Beau in the AHL so far, and the decision to bring him up for camp was well-deserved," Shero said. "He acquitted himself very well, and we liked what we saw (during a scrimmage at Consol Energy Center) last night."

Shero conceded, though, that the Penguins "ran into some waiver issues with some other guys" who were candidates to be demoted, and management decided the prudent move was to send Bennett and fellow forward Jayson Megna, who also was waivers-exempt, to the Baby Penguins.

The Penguins' final move to get down to the regular-season limit of 23 was to place defenseman Brian Strait on waivers.

If he is not claimed by noon Friday, Strait will be assigned to Wilkes-Barre.

Shero declined to speculate on whether another club will pick up Strait, but said that, "I know some teams like Brian."

The Penguins are believed to have explored trade possibilities for Strait before waiving him, but if they received an offer, they clearly didn't deem it worth accepting.

Shero said he does not know how coach Dan Bylsma plans to use rookie defenseman Simon Despres, who could have been returned to Wilkes-Barre without going through waivers, but it seems clear that Despres isn't being kept in the NHL to be just a depth guy.

"He was up for 15 or 20 games last year, and we saw some good things in his game," Shero said. "We're going to give him an opportunity to be in the lineup and see where it goes."