Musings: Penguins Finish October with 8-2-2 Record

The Penguins improved to 8-2-2 on the season, extended their point streak to eight games, and rose to the top of the NHL standings after defeating the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night 4-1.

“We’re taking it each day as it comes. I don’t think that we’re trying to get too far ahead of ourselves, and I think that we’re having a lot of fun with it,” Bryan Rust said. “There’s the good and the bad, trying to learn from the bad, and learn from the good, too. Just trying to have as much fun as possible.”

While the team didn’t get off to the greatest of starts tonight, goaltender Tristan Jarry was there to make some key and timely saves for his team. But also, the defense sacrificed their bodies when it came to blocking shots. Most notably, Parker Wotherspoon blocked a one-timer from Kirill Kaprizov in the first period on the penalty kill.

“It’s huge, obviously, they’re not wearing as much gear as us, and it hurts a lot more,” Jarry said. “For them to be able to do that and go down there willingly, [Arturs Silovs] and I love to see that. It helps us a ton.”

Minnesota headed into the matchup with the league’s best-ranked power play at 31.8%. But Pittsburgh’s penalty kill came out on top when they killed off all four of the Wild’s man-advantages.

“I think with the games that we struggled [on the PK], we weren’t pressuring enough,” Ryan Shea said. “With today, the moment that we saw an open puck, we kind of pressured. Obviously, they’ve got a lot of skill over there. We pressured on the entry, pressured down low, and our clears were good. It was probably one of our better games.”

After Evgeni Malkin’s goal towards the end of the first period was disallowed for goaltender interference, the team found themselves down 1-0 and outshot 13-6.heading into the first intermission.

“I don’t think that we were playing fast enough,” Rust said. “I don’t think that we were putting enough pucks into the o-zone and kind of getting in on the forecheck. We all knew that we didn’t have a great first, and we were all determined to have a better second and third.”

Shea got his team going offensively with his second goal of the season. He set a new career-high in points with his game-tying tally. But Shea wasn’t done there when it came to contributing on the offensive side of the puck.

After a faceoff win in the Wild’s zone, the puck found Shea at the point, who executed a beautiful backdoor pass to Rust that gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead in the third period. From that point on, the Penguins began to take over.

"He worked really hard in the summer. Came in here, got ready to go, got ready to take a job. And he's been fantastic," Rust said. "His confidence is obviously through the roof, and he's been playing great for us."

While the team only received one power play opportunity throughout the game, they made the most of it. Rookie Ben Kindel, who was moved to the first unit after Rickard Rakell went down with an injury, scored a huge goal in another monumental game for himself.

“He’s been awesome. To come in here as an 18-year-old kid and be able to do it, he’s doing it,” Rust said. “To have the high character and the ability to play the way that he has, I think it is extremely special. There is no moment that seems to be too big for him.”

Kindel himself knows how special an opportunity it is to be put on the ice with the likes of Crosby and Malkin, but he understands that he has to stick to the game that has gotten him to this point. The goal he scored on Thursday was a perfect combination of his hockey IQ, work ethic, and skill being on full display.

“We think, based on what we've seen of him up to this point, just the sense, his ability to read space, the ability to attack space, to know where the next play is – those are the types of things that I think we've seen from him on a pretty consistent basis,” Head Coach Dan Muse said.

Throughout the game, it was Jarry who continued to make saves when his team needed them the most. Thursday marked Jarry’s fourth straight win and an overall record of 5-1-0. For Jarry, it’s all about building on his performances.

“I think it’s learning from each mistake that you make,” Jarry said. “I thought that in the previous games, there were some mistakes that I made, so it’s just cleaning those up and being able to learn from. Every time that you get to step in the net, there’s another learning opportunity, and I think tonight was another one of those.”

After the game, the Penguins awarded the helmet to 10-year-old Weston Paszkiewicz. Through Marc-Andre Fleury, he signed a one-day contract with the Wild through the Make-A-Wish Foundation following his January leukemia diagnosis.

Here is what Muse had to say in his media availability.

How proud of you for the way that your team was able to play in the third period?

Yeah, I thought the third period was obviously our best. I thought the second period we started to get things going. I thought it started to be more in line with how we wanted to play in the second, and then I thought we were really happy with the third.

You have now killed off 12 out of the last 13 penalties. How proud are you of the group in that regard?

They're doing a really good job. I mean, there are still things that we can continue to build into it. We talked about before the game, I think the pressure on the lines, I thought those were good, you're making it harder for them to enter the zone, loose puck, some of the details of it. I think that's been something that has just continued to evolve. That's a really good power play over there, too. Having to kill four like that, that's obviously a tall task, and they were at some critical points of the game. So huge credit there to all the penalty killers for getting the job done tonight.

Did you take the timeout in the first period to get a better look at the disallowed goal?

Yeah, better look. It was one of those ones where I felt like it was real close, but it happens quick. It's not something you want to do and use that time out. But there was enough there where we felt like we needed to get another angle on it and double-check. We made the call. Obviously, it didn't go our way, but that's the way we saw things.

Do you like the way that your team responded to the no-goal call?

It’s great. You quickly go from thinking you scored a goal, and then they call it off on the ice. Now it's in question, and then you challenge it, and now you also have to kill a penalty. So that's a lot that is coming at you quickly. But I do think this group has shown, too, that they're kind of up for those types of challenges, those types of moments. They know the importance of killing off that penalty when it happens. There were some critical moments there. Those penalties had to be killed. Not all penalty kills end up being equal in terms of the impact on the game and the time in the game, and how it can swing a game. And so I thought we had some really big ones there tonight.

What about Jarry’s performance?

He was awesome. He's the top guy on every penalty-killing unit. So whoever's in net that day, we need them to be our best penalty killer. That's always the case. And Jars was, Silovs has done that same here this year as well. Those guys play such an important role in the penalty kill.

How has Kindel looked on the top power-play unit?

It was quick tonight. They didn't extend the time too long, which we're not complaining about. It was obviously great there, especially where that was our only opportunity. That's hard when you haven't gotten a power play all game, and then you finally get that one. It's a huge credit to those guys just to be ready for it, because that's not an easy thing. It’s one thing when you had one a period, and you kind of get into a rhythm. You're in that point of a game, another huge moment, but you've been waiting on it. I think for Kindel, obviously, with the goal, but also just the entire unit putting us in a position where we can get that done as quickly as we did. Special teams were massive here for us tonight.