Brassard displays his scoring touch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Penguins might have some defensive stuff to clean up in the coming days, but Derick Brassard definitely is ready to go.
Brassard scored two goals Friday night in the Penguins’ 7-6 loss against the Columbus Blue Jackets, their final preseason game before the season opener Thursday night against the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals.
Playing half the game by design, Casey DeSmith stopped 15 of 17 shots on goal. It’s likely enough to cement DeSmith’s status as Matt Murray’s backup entering the regular season.
The Penguins finished the preseason (2-3-1).
Brassard’s first goal forged a 3-3 tie late in the first period. Taking a shift at left wing, he capitalized on a neutral-zone turnover and whipped a shot low, far-side past Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
A short-handed tally followed. Bryan Rust delivered a pass. Brassard, with a step on Columbus center Pierre-Luc Dubois, beat Bobrovsky five-hole. That gave Brassard three goals in the preseason, tied with Matt Cullen for the team lead.
Brassard’s stretch pass to set up Rust for the Penguins’ sixth goal also was impressive.
Columbus right winger Oliver Bjorkstrand scored the winning goal late in the third period.
Sidney Crosby, Carl Hagelin and Patric Hornqvist also scored for the Penguins. Hagelin’s came on a tremendous individual effort in the first period. After blocking a shot near his blue line, Hagelin turned on the jets, faked a slap shot and slid the puck between Bobrovsky’s legs.
Left winger Artemi Panarin staked Columbus to an early 2-0 lead with a pair odd-man-rush goals, as neither team was terribly sound defensively. Fellow forwards Boone Jenner, Cam Atkinson and Nick Foligno scored the Blue Jackets’ other goals.
The Penguins producing so much offense should not come as a surprise, but it’s likely they’re going to want to tighten some of their defensive-zone coverages in the coming days.
The Penguins are off Saturday and will practice a handful of times before playing host to the Capitals at PPG Paints Arena.
Devils claim Dea
The Penguins tried to sneak two players through waivers Thursday and reassign them to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Only one made it. New Jersey claimed forward Jean-Sebastien Dea, while defenseman Zach Trotman cleared.
Dea, a 5-foot-11, 175-pound center who also has played the wing, was known mostly for his skating. In six career NHL games, he had one goal.
“He’s made tremendous progress,” Penguins assistant general manager Bill Guerin said earlier this month. “He’s always put himself in the mix lately for callups and things like that. He has to solidify his identity and what he can bring to the table.”
With no open center spots on the NHL roster, sending Dea, 24, back to the minors made sense. Maybe too much sense, thought Devils general manager Ray Shero.
Shero was in charge of the Penguins when they signed Dea, who went undrafted, to a three-year, entry-level deal with them Sept. 17, 2013.
Dea was one of the Penguins’ top forward replacements. It would’ve went Teddy Blueger first, then Dea. Now, this could mean bigger things for versatile forwards such as Adam Johnson or Thomas Di Pauli.
Juuso Riikola: ‘Why not?’
Finnish defenseman Juuso Riikola is a man of few words. He didn’t need many to convey this sentiment.
Riikola was asked about the possibility of him remaining with the Penguins out of training camp, a tantalizing possibility for many fans. “Why not?” he said, with a smile. Riikola has played in every preseason game, becoming one of the best stories of camp because of his smooth skating, passing, ability and willingness to do a little bit of everything. Also the fact that it took Riikola about 2.5 seconds to adjust to the smaller North American rinks.
Not that Riikola is thinking too much about that.
“I don’t have any [expectations],” Riikola said. “I’m trying to do my best every day. That’s it.”
The only tough part, Riikola said, has been navigating some of coach Mike Sullivan’s practices.
“Practice is hard,” Riikola said. “You need to focus all the time. The drills aren’t the same. You get used to it.”
That last hurdle
Zach Aston-Reese has had a fine camp, but he’ll likely be the odd-man out because he’s on a two-way contract and still has some stuff to learn. One of those things is asserting himself more physically.
Aston-Reese is big and strong, but the Penguins would like to see him use his size more.
“It is a dimension of his game that he’s very capable of bringing to the team,” Sullivan said. “He has good size. He’s a strong kid. He’s sneaky tough. And he has the ability to bring that dimension to our team. He plays at his best when he brings a little bit of edge to his game. That’s something we’ve been trying to encourage Zach to bring to the table.”
Ailing Sprong still out
Young winger Daniel Sprong was the only absenteee at practice Friday. He remained day-to-day with a lower-body injury suffered in the preseason game Wednesday against the Buffalo Sabres. Sprong’s injury hurts his chances of making the opening-night roster.