Offense puts on a show
Kessel, Letang notch two goals apiece as Penguins post rare back-to-back victories
After plenty of fits and starts, sprints and tumbles to the ground after kicking over a few hurdles, the Penguins finally appear to have gained some traction.
What they might be missing, however, is one of their most indispensable players, as Patric Hornqvist left the 62 rout of the New York Islanders Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena after the first period.
Coach Mike Sullivan had no update on Hornqvist postgame, explaining he had not yet met with the team’s medical staff, and was unsure whether whatever limited Hornqvist to just 6:44 was related to the feisty right wing’s latest injury — a concussion, at least his third in the past two years.
Without Hornqvist, the Penguins adjusted and didn’t miss a beat.
They put forth a tremendous defensive effort and that translated into offense, as Phil Kessel led the way with four points. Kris Letang and Kessel scored two goals
apiece, while Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel each enjoyed three-point nights.
“Obviously, this year hasn’t started off the best for us,” Kessel said. “We’re right in it. There’s a lot of hockey to play. We have to keep improving and getting better.”
By winning back-to-back games for just the second time since that long Canadian road trip in October, the Penguins (12-10-5) jumped into a third-place tie in the Metropolitan Division. They also improved to 5-2-1 in their past eight home games.
“That’s what happens when the whole team comes out and plays really well, plays really hard,” said goalie Casey DeSmith, who stopped 19 of 21 shots in the winning effort. “Dominated at home, that’s something we’ve been wanting to do more and more lately. I think [Thursday] was kind of a culmination of that.”
Without Hornqvist, coach Mike Sullivan got creative, and nearly everything Sullivan touched turned into goals.
Sullivan used Riley Sheahan with Evgeni Malkin to start the second period, and Sheahan made Sullivan look smart by scoring his third goal inthe past five games on a lacrosse-style hack.
With Dominik Simon (lower-body injury) also out and Bryan Rust struggling to score, Sullivan went rummaging around the bottom of the toolbox and threw together Crosby and Kessel, a combination that usually only sees time together after the Penguins kill penalties, on the power play and (occasionally) in four-on-four situations.
The results were very good, to the point that it’s fair to wonder if Crosby and Kessel might stick together for a little longer should the news on Hornqvist be bad.
Crosby finished a pretty, tic-tac-toe passing sequence for Kessel’s first goal, a power-play snipe from one knee. Crosby later waited and waited and made scoring a cinch for Kessel at the far post.
“You watch him out there,” Kessel said, “he’s special.”
And red hot. Crosby has seven goals and 13 points in eight games since returning from his upper-body injury and 15 goals in 18 games since scoring for the first time in 2018-19. Crosby leads the Penguins with 11 multipoint games this season.
But even with all the offense, it’s hard to talk about the Penguins right now and ignore the improved allaround effort.
Sure, they allowed another short-handed goal — their NHL-worst eighth — but they’re starting to do a really good job preventing most other things.
The 21 shots on goal the Penguins allowed were the second-fewest they have given up this season. Get rid of the 45 shots allowed Tuesday, and the Penguins allowed no more than 27 in the three games before that. Five-on-five, the Penguins are allowing an average of 18.6 scoring chances over the past seven games, per naturalstattrick.com, compared to 21.8 over their first 20. They’re also allowing two fewer five-on-five high-danger chances (9.6 to 7.6) in that same stretch.
“We’ve really improved in our own end,” said Sullivan, whose team has allowed just 11 goals in its five past wins. “We’re not giving up nearly as many chances. We’ve definitely improved in that aspect of the game. We’re cutting down not only the quantity of the chances but the quality as well most nights.”
Some of that has to do with personnel.
Marcus Pettersson has been a nice addition, and Jack Johnson is currently slotted where he should be — on the third pair. Olli Maatta has improved. Letang and Brian Dumoulin are right up there with the top tandems in the league.
The Penguins are also getting more help from their forwards tracking back and helping out, which only occasionally happened earlier in the season.For whatever reason — maybe a lack of urgency, maybe the pieces needing to fit together just right, maybe getting scared of actually missing the playoffs — the Penguins have finally figured some stuff out.
But there’s plenty of challenges ahead with Thursday kicking off a stretch of 10 games in 17 nights.
“I think it’s what we do with it, right?” Crosby said. “The last couple weeks, you look at it as a whole, we’ve been pretty good at defending pretty hard.
“That’s been our mindset.”