Things started off perfect for the Penguins and then things just kind of fell apart. Let’s start with the very good.
Jake Guentzel did his best Mario Lemieux impression by scoring his first goal on his first shot on his first shift. Then he outdid the Penguins legend by scoring his second goal of the game. Super Mario only had one in his debut game.
Guentzel displayed good speed down the left wing and was fortunate enough to catch Antti Rannta sleeping. Here is his debut goal.
His family’s reaction was absolutely perfect
Guentzel family so pumped https://t.co/FTg8HuNQ8o
— Evgeni Malkin's Ego (@EvgeniMaIkinEgo) November 22, 2016
He wasn’t done. Evgeni Malkin provided a center drive as the F2 on a three on two and created havoc. Guentzel, who was the F3, was able to swoop on in and clean up amid the chaos created.
Guentzel finished the night on the positive side of possession. He was on the ice for 14 shot attempts for and 13 against. He was one of five (Schultz, Cole, Rust, Bonino) Penguins who were above 50%.
It was a great debut for Guentzel. I don’t have any apprehensions about his ability to play in the NHL. It might be time for the kid to start searching for an apartment because he’s going to leap frog some of the other forward options pretty quick.
The good news for the Penguins was pretty much non-existent besides the Guentzel debut. They were outplayed by a Rangers team who had played the night prior. After controlling the first period the Rangers controlled the game flow the last two periods. Not ideal if you are the rested team like Pittsburgh was.
You know it is a bad night when Dan Girardi is a 68% possession player against you. He led all skaters.
Michael Grabner continues to score goals at an incredible pace. He is tied with Sidney Crosby with 12 goals on the year. He scored the Rangers second goal.
Root Sports showed a graphic last night that Sidney Crosby has scored the highest percentage of his teams goals this year. That is telling on two fronts. The first is that Crosby is off to an incredible start. The second and a little bit alarming is the fact that he missed about 25% of Pittsburgh’s games so far and still has the highest percentage. That tells me that not enough players are scoring goals for the team.
In fact, after only one game Jake Guentzel has as many or more goals as: Kris Letang, Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino, Chris Kunitz, Bryan Rust, Eric Fehr, Trevor Daley, Ian Cole, Olli Maatta, Justin Schultz, Tom Kuhnhackl, and Brian Dumoulin. Many of those players have played in 19 games with Tom Kuhnhackl playing the lowest of the bunch at 13. This is a problem. The team can’t fall back into the trap that plagued them in-between their championship seasons. They cannot just rely on a few guys to provide all of the offense. There has to be some help from the roster depth. Here is a look at that divide
There is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between Kessel and Rust. While the gap between those specific players isn’t alarming it is the fact that nobody is in-between them. It’s early in the year and there is certainly plenty of time for that to change, but this is definitely a trend worth tracking now.
Pittsburgh can collect themselves and gear up for the rematch that will come on Wednesday night at MSG. The next game will more than likely come with two different goaltenders. Henrik Lundqvist is likely to get the start for New York while Matt Murray will probably be back in net for Pittsburgh.