Usually when a team slips out of playoff contention at the end of the regular season it can become an opportunity to start looking ahead for future seasons. Prospects get called up, younger players get big playing time, and everything becomes an audition.
With the Pittsburgh Penguins likely to keep their top prospects in the American Hockey League to play meaningful games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, there might not be many opportunities for that to happen here.
(I support that decision and think it is the right call, by the way.)
The closest thing they might have for that is defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok and forward Philip Tomasino.