Pittsburgh is howling with joy to be back in the win column after defeating the 31st place Arizona Coyotes. It was Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin leading the way with three points apiece. Each had a goal and two assists and were in on every Penguins goal. More on that line in a bit.
Let’s talk about the last place Arizona Coyotes. For the past number of years they have been bottom feeders although I believe that was their intention. They were neck and neck with Buffalo in the McDavid/Eichel sweepstakes and “lost… by beating Buffalo late in the year. I don’t believe that this year was supposed to have that same kind of feel to it. Arizona acquired some legitimate NHL talent over the offseason with trades for Derek Stepan, Jason Demers, and Nicklas Hjallmarsson. Clayton Keller has been awesome so far this year as well. They might not be a playoff team, but they should be competitive. It’s too early for blame considering we aren’t even at the 20 game mark, but I think it is worth keeping an eye on Rick Tocchet as a head coach. His last go around as a head coach wasn’t great and when Guy Boucher took over there was a big jump in the underlying numbers. As far as I can tell there wasn’t a huge change in personnel from Tocchet to Boucher
That’s a sizable difference.
There has been improvement from the 2016-17 Coyotes to the 2017-18 team under Tocchet although you have to be actively trying to be bad to get the numbers Arizona had in 2016-17.
It is worth noting the y axis on both charts. The second one doesn’t have anything 50 or above. Again, Arizona still has some work to do with their overall roster, but they shouldn’t be sitting where they are right now in my opinion.
It’s something to track as the season wears on.
Back to Malkin/Kessel. There was something different about that line last night, I can’t quite put my finger on it though. Oh yeah, Kessel and Malkin were reunited and were given another top six winger to play with. Jake Guentzel is an infinitely better option than Tom Kuhnhackl. It’s obvious, but I guess it needs to be stated since the Kuhnhackl experiment lasted longer than a single game. The only time Guentzel should be away from Crosby or Malkin is if the team makes a drastic change and utilizes Guentzel as the third line center instead of Riley Sheahan.
The first goal was a nice example of how quickly the Malkin, Kessel, Guentzel trio and transition to offense
That #4 guy was back in the lineup. It took less than a minute for Justin Schultz to make an impact. Sure, shooting at that angle takes a bit of luck for it to go in. What isn’t lucky is the fact he works his tail end off to join the play on such a quick transition. It’s nice to have his dynamic ability back in the lineup.
Their second goal was in transition as well
This was a little sloppier because of the bouncing pucks, but just look at Phil and Geno make the most of each of their touches at the end of the sequence. Those are the plays that can be strung together by skilled guys on the ice. Even the Guentzel cross ice pass that didn’t quite settle was still great vision and hitting Phil in stride.
If I could bottle up what the Penguins were doing early on in the game on the power play I would. I can’t remember which one specifically (there were six), but in the first period they kept things so simple yet with purpose. Everything complimented the skill sets of the players on the ice. Kris Letang has started to shoot more and overall the power play is shooting more. This gets the most out of Patric Hornqvist in front and keeps the penalty killers scrambling for rebounds and loose pucks which opens up passing lanes as the other four Penguins were able to smartly and effectively move the puck.
The power play they scored on wasn’t the best example of the night, but it did highlight the willingness to shoot and hound a rebound.
Pittsburgh will get a few days before their next game which will be Friday in Washington against the Capitals. They will return to the site of their latest Stanley Cup victory on Saturday night when they take on the Predators.
Thanks for reading!