Mark Madden: Vasily Ponomarev, Harrison Brunicke offer Penguins a much needed youth movement

The Pittsburgh Penguins are an old team. Their stars are old. It depends on who makes the team, but the Penguins’ roster likely will have the NHL’s oldest average age.

You can’t reach unrestricted free agency in the NHL unless you have seven years of service or are 27 years old. It’s difficult to make an NHL team younger via any means besides the draft.

Age makes me question the Penguins’ legs, obviously.

It also makes me question their desire, though the team’s tenured stars — Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin — are exceptions. But the bottom-six forwards, for example, strike me as mostly burnt-out veterans content to collect a paycheck.

Coach Mike Sullivan prefers veterans. In Pittsburgh, veterans get respect. That was more palatable when that respect had been earned as a Penguin.

But now, after missing the playoffs for two straight seasons, the Penguins must get younger even if it’s in small increments. They need those legs and, just as important, that energy.

Hockey Hall-of-Famer Phil Esposito once commented on the PPG Paints Arena elevator that he wouldn’t want 30-year-olds in his bottom six because they lack desire.

The Penguins won’t get a lot younger when their opening-day roster is picked.

Some youngsters, like wingers Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen, would benefit most by getting top-six roles and minutes with the Penguins’ Wilkes-Barre/Scranton farm club.

But youth should get opportunity in two instances:

• Forward Vasily Ponomarev should make the bottom six.

• Defenseman Harrison Brunicke should start the season with the Penguins if Erik Karlsson isn’t ready for the opener. Karlsson is hurt. He hasn’t participated in training camp and barely even has skated.

Ponomarev has had a good preseason. He left Tuesday’s exhibition game with Detroit after suffering an upper-body injury, which could provide the excuse for him not making the team.

Ponomarev came to the Penguins as part of the Jake Guentzel trade with Carolina. He’s a bottom-six by trade. That’s his role. His biggest qualifications: He’s not 30. He’s not a journeyman.

As for Brunicke, he’s the surprise of the preseason.

Just 18, he was the Penguins’ second-round pick in this year’s draft. As a Major Junior player, Brunicke has to spend the entire year with the Penguins if he plays more than nine NHL games at season’s start. He can’t be sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He’d have to be returned to his junior team, Kamloops. All that is as per the silly agreement the NHL made to protect Major Junior. But it hinders development.

Brunicke checks all the boxes. He’s 6-foot-3. Right-handed. He can skate. Good with the puck. An excellent one-on-one defender. He’s looked capable in exhibition play. He got an assist Tuesday.

The Penguins want their defensemen to activate, to jump into the play. Brunicke has a knack for it. When to go, when not to. He’s not a suicide bomber. He’s smart.

If Karlsson isn’t ready for opening night next Wednesday at home against the New York Rangers, use Brunicke. See how he does. Wait out Karlsson’s injury. For nine games, anyway. Brunicke’s the hot hand, and every point matters.

With Karlsson out, the other options are flipping a left-handed defenseman to the right side, maybe Ryan Graves. Graves can barely play the left side.

Then somebody like Ryan Shea completes the bottom pair. He’s proven to be meh, no better, and probably worse.

Brunicke has upside. The other options on defense don’t.

Ponomarev has upside. The other options on the bottom six don’t.

The only way to get younger is to use younger players.

The only way for the Penguins to improve is to try something different. It might not work. But relying on veterans hasn’t succeeded for years. Give yourself a higher ceiling.

Sullivan has to change things. If he won’t, GM Kyle Dubas has to make him.