After a disappointing finish to last season from both an individual and team perspective for Jake Guentzel, he returned to his native Minnesota with the goal of getting back to what gave him success in the past, while making sure he was adding strength and quickness at the same time.
Guentzel's Honest Effort Translating to Production
But just 10 days into training camp, Guentzel confirmed positive for COVID-19 and was forced to isolate for the next 10 days, doing what he could to stay active and not lose the gains he made during the offseason. He did score after debuting in Pittsburgh's second game of the season on Oct. 14 at Florida, but from there, Guentzel went goalless for the next six.
"I got to be better and I just got to try and help as much as I can, and I just got to start producing," Guentzel said following a 4-2 loss to New Jersey on Oct. 30.
Has he ever.
Guentzel has since recorded at least a point in 14 of 15 games following that contest to help the Penguins climb from 13th in the conference to a Wild Card playoff spot. He scored in the Penguins' 5-2 setback to Edmonton on Wednesday to extend his career-long point streak to 11 games. His previous personal best was seven games, set twice before.
The 27-year-old winger has collected seven goals and 12 points over this current span, the longest active one in the NHL. The last time a Penguins player recorded a longer point streak was in 2015-16, when Sidney Crosby had a 12-game stretch.
Stretching back further, in the past 20 years, Guentzel joins the captain, Evgeni Malkin, Mario Lemieux, Pascal Dupuis, Jordan Staal and Alexei Kovalev as the only Penguins to record 10-plus game point streaks.
If you ask Guentzel what's driving his production, he'll say a lot of it comes down to luck.
"The puck just goes in sometimes like that, and finds you in some different ways," he said. "I'm just trying to throw pucks on net and get it on the net, and it's going in right now. So that's just the game of hockey sometimes, you get the bounces and you just kind of feed off it when they're going in."
While his humble approach is appreciated, if you ask Mike Sullivan, he'll say there's a lot more to it. The Penguins head coach used the word "honest" numerous times when answering a question about what's behind Guentzel's success, as for the most part, he's playing the right way and bringing the requisite effort on both sides of the puck.
"He's not trying to force plays that aren't there," Sullivan said recently. "He's defending when he needs to. He's on the right side of the puck. He's strong on the puck. And I just think when he plays an honest game, he's a talented player, he's going to get opportunities to score. He'll create offense."
That's partly because Guentzel is willing to go to the hard areas to score, as his competitiveness is one of his two biggest strengths. At 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, he certainly isn't the biggest guy, but Guentzel has never let his size hold him back. He's put tons of pucks on net - recording at least five shots in six of the games over his point streak - and never hesitates to follow them up.
"You know you're going to take a cross check, you know you're going to pay a physical price and make sacrifices in order to score goals, and Jake doesn't bat an eye about going to those areas," Sullivan said. "He loves to score, and he's willing to pay the price to do so."
His other biggest strength is his hockey IQ, which is what has allowed him to build such chemistry alongside Crosby over the years since Guentzel first broke into the league back in 2017.
"His IQ is off the charts," Sullivan said. "He has the offensive instincts to think the game and play with a player like Sid, and I think they've developed instant chemistry from the time that we've put them together. And they've been, for the most part, together, the whole way here. For me, it's hard to break those two guys up because of the chemistry that they've developed."
Crosby played in just one of Pittsburgh's first 13 games to start the season following offseason wrist surgery and his own bout with COVID-19. He returned on Nov. 13, which was the start of Guentzel's current run. But Crosby said that his linemate's success "has more to do with him than me."
"I think Guentz has just got a real knack for finding open ice," Crosby continued. 'He goes to the net hard, so he can score in and around the net. But I think just whatever the game kind of dictates, if it's tight checking and he's got to go to the front, he's willing to do it. If it's more open, then he can make plays and shoot and score from the slot. … He's playing great hockey and finding the back of the net."
