Opportunity knocks
With injuries mounting, Frederik Gaudreau will get a chance.
Injuries to Evgeni Malkin, Brandon Tanev and others have created opportunities for Penguins players who started the season on the fringes of the NHL roster.
One guy who actually did something with his this weekend is Frederik Gaudreau.
Gaudreau made his Penguins debut Thursday in New Jersey, underwhelming in that one. He was better in Saturday’s win at Prudential Center and was one of the few Penguins with pep in his step in Sunday’s 2-1 loss at PPG Paints Arena.
In those past two games, Gaudreau helped the Penguins kill a few penalties. He won six of his 10 faceoffs. And twice on Sunday he came oh-so close to scoring.
Sidney Crosby certainly noticed. Sunday, midway through a reporter’s question about Gaudreau contributions, the captain nodded, seemingly in approval.
“He’s done a really good job,” Crosby said. “It’s not easy. He’s thrown into a pretty key role. I thought he played really well. He looked really good [Sunday]. He made some great plays, did a great job on the kill. Really solid. So that’s huge.”
Gaudreau spent his first six seasons with the Nashville Predators, primarily playing for the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League. In 280 career AHL games, the 27-yearold forward tallied 77 goals and 172 points. At the NHL level, he had just three goals and eight points in 84 regular-season games.
The playoffs were another story. You may remember Gaudreau scoring a couple of winning goals against the Penguins during the 2017 Stanley Cup final.
The Penguins signed him for depth purposes this offseason and he split time on the taxi squad and in the minors before Malkin and Teddy Blueger went down. Tanev was sidelined Saturday and Sunday, too. Gaudreau has done his best to fill some of the voids left by the loss of Blueger and Tanev, valuable role players.
“He’s a competitive kid,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s won some faceoffs for us. He’s done some penalty killing for us. He had some scoring chances. … I think he’s played pretty well since we asked him to come into the lineup here.”
If he keeps it up, he could still have a lineup spot when those injured players return. The fourth line and penalty kill have been problem areas for the Penguins. Sullivan added that he thinks Gaudreau, skating at center so far, can also play the wing.
Speaking of Tanev
Sullivan said two hours before the puck dropped Sunday that Tanev would be a game- time decision against the Devils. But when Penguins players took the ice for warmups at PPG Paints Arena, the winger was not among them.
Tanev also missed Saturday’s 3-1 win in New Jersey with an upper-body injury suffered Thursday against the Devils. He was on the ice for the start of warmups Saturday but headed to the dressing room and did not play in that game.
Sullivan said Tanev’s status is day to day. The Penguins next play on Wednesday, when the Buffalo Sabres come to PPG Paints Arena for the first of back-toback games.
Tanev has been one of the team’s most impactful forwards this season. Entering Sunday, he ranked fourth in the NHL with 133 hits and his 32 blocked shots were first among Penguins forwards. In his 30 games played, Tanev scored seven goals with eight assists. Thirteen of those 15 points were tallied at 5-on-5.
Ahead of schedule?
Sullivan said Jason Zucker skated again on an individual basis prior to Sunday’s loss. The winger has been sidelined since Feb. 23 with a lower-body injury.
The Penguins have not shared a timetable on when he could return to full-squad practices. But the fact that he is already skating is welcome given how gruesome Zucker’s injury appeared to be when he went down in Washington.
Still Sullivan declined to say that Zucker’s recovery is “ahead of schedule.”
“What I will say is that we’re encouraged with his progress,” he said. “He’s skated a few days in a row now. [Sunday], he skated with the taxi squad guys. He was in full equipment. So that’s another big step for him. We’ll just continue to monitor him and hopefully he can continue to progress at the rate he’s going.”
No place like home
Tristan Jarry has been excellent at PPG Paints Arena all season. Despite losing Sunday, he is 9-2-1 with a .932 save percentage and a 2.32 goals- against average at home. On the road he is 3-6-1 with a .871 save percentage and a 3.55 GAA.
Those splits presumably factored into Sullivan giving Casey DeSmith the start on Saturday and going with Jarry at home a day later, as opposed to vice versa.
“We’re going to try to leverage that,” he said of Jarry’s success at home.