General manager Kyle Dubas and the Pittsburgh Penguins recently made a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers that can be considered a minor-league trade. Dubas dealt struggling NHL forward Philip Tomasino to the Flyers for defenseman Egor Zamula who also struggled in the NHL.
But the Penguins recently got news that was alarming and puts a wrench in any sort of plan that they could have had for him. They got news that he failed to report to their AHL team the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins and suspended him as a result of failing to report to the team.
Acquired earlier this week from #LetsGoFlyers, the Penguins #LetsGoPens have suspended defenseman Egor Zamula for failure to report to AHL Wilkes-Barre.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) January 4, 2026
The only way that this kind of news could make sense is if Zamula feels he deserves NHL time over more AHL time. But if the Penguins just wanted to put him on a possible development plan to get to know their system and then call him up to the NHL, that is a different story.
But the fact that he refused to report at all to Wilkes-Barre says a lot about what Zamula is thinking and how he values himself and how he plays. It could be that he got caught in bad weather knowing it is winter season in Pennsylvania, but also could be that he generally did not want to play there.
But the only thing that fans and the Penguins know, is that he failed to report to Wilkes-Barre and for now Zamula is suspended. The same thing happened earlier in the year when Emil Pieniniemi failed to report to the Penguins ECHL team the Wheeling Nailers and they suspended him for a bit.
Who knows what Zamula could have done in Wilkes-Barre if he actually showed up because there were not a lot of good reports about his play from Flyers fans. But for the time being, the Penguins will not know what they could have gotten out of him in the AHL, but obviously the hope is he reports soon and they can lift the suspension.