Over the last few days of training camp, all the Penguins could talk about was being ready to play hockey again after a long offseason that featured lots of invigorating changes.
After player introductions were made at PPG Paints Arena, that excitement showed in the first 20 minutes of Tuesday's matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks to open the 2023.24 campaign, as the Penguins did a solid job of playing to their team identity for most of that period. They pushed the pace and stayed aggressive, coming away with a 1-0 lead after Bryan Rust opened the scoring. “We had speed, we had energy,” defenseman Kris Letang said.
But even though Pittsburgh built a 2-0 lead just over eight minutes into the second period on a goal from Sidney Crosby, at that point, they had already started to fall back on their heels somewhat … and Chicago went on to score unanswered (including an empty netter) to earn a 4-2 victory. Letang said they needed to be much harder to play against and bring a certain physical element they were missing.
“It’s Game 1. You’ve got to learn,” Crosby said. “It’s better when you can learn when you’ve won, but obviously, it’s just the timing, checking close, and making sure we don’t give them Grade-A opportunities. Just as a whole, if you look at the chances we got, pretty sure they don’t want to give up the chances we had either. So, it’s just who can get to their game a little bit better, and obviously, they were able to get a couple in the third.”
While it was a disappointing result, there were certainly some positives to take from the game, including:
- Tristan Jarry, finally healthy after dealing with injuries last season, looked strong and put together a solid performance. “It's good. It's encouraging,” he said. “It’s nice to be on that side of things and it's nice to be able to put a good game forward.”
- The penalty kill got tested a lot, and they were phenomenal, going 4-for-4. Jarry was particularly impressive in those scenarios, and he credited the guys around him. “We were blocking shots, we were getting in lanes, and I think we forced them to the outside. That makes my job a lot easier when pucks are staying to the outside and they're shooting perimeter shots. I think we did a good job and we're just going to grow.”
- Jake Guentzel was able to play after practicing with the team for the past week. It marked his first game action since last season, as the forward missed all of the exhibition games while recovering from ankle surgery in early August. “Felt good,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a little tough going right into the action, but still think there’s more for me, I just got to be a little bit better. Hopefully can build off something like this.”
Guentzel was a little hard on himself after the game about not bearing down on some of his opportunities, saying, “it’s disappointing to have that Grade-A of chances and I can’t score one there. That’s on me, I got to be better." But truly, it’s a testament to his goal-scoring ability that he created so many after such a long layoff, and it's only a matter of time before they start falling.
Head Coach Mike Sullivan discussed Guentzel and the Penguins' overall game in his postgame media availability.
A lot of new faces, but some of the same things that we saw last year – does that give you any pause even though it’s only one game? “Well, I think this is a new year, it's a new team, it’s a whole new group of players. I’d like to believe we’re a better team than what we showed tonight. I just thought it was a loose game. It was a high-event game on both sides. That’s not the type of game that's conducive to winning. We certainly don't stack the deck in our favor. So we’ve got to play more responsible.”
You guys got 40 shots on goal, which I'm sure you're pleased with – but did that reflect enough Grade-A scoring chances? “I thought there were a number of Grade-A scoring chances. The problem was there were Grade-A’s on both sides. We had some breakaways; we had some looks. Jake hits the post in the third period. There were lot of good looks. I don't think the issue was generating offense. We didn't convert on them as much as we'd like. But we've got to be a whole lot better as far as being stingy in protecting the scoring area, defending the scoring area. We give up that goal in the third period right from the slot, uncontested. We've got to be a lot stingier than that.”
Does that also include a more sustained forecheck? It felt like there was a fair amount of one and dones. “Yeah, there was. I didn't think we control territory as well as we're capable. I don't think we were stiff enough on the puck in the offensive zone. We got to get our noses over it, we got to hang onto it more. We have to have the ability to use the depth of the zone, width of the zone to get the puck out of the traffic areas. So, there were a number of things, but we've got a ways to go here. We've got a ways to go. So there were a lot of good things, but certainly there's a lot of areas where we’ve got to be a whole lot better.”
Just wanted to get your impressions on Jake Guentzel’s game, considering this is his first game action since last season. “I thought Jake played really hard. It's the first game that he's played. Some of our other guys have got some exhibition games. When you get in the real environment of an NHL game, it's just difficult to simulate that in any sort of practice or environment that Jake's been in up until this point. So, I thought for his first game, he competed really hard. It doesn't surprise me. He's just a warrior. He’s a competitive guy. I think his timing and things of that nature will get better as he plays, his chemistry with Sid will continue to improve. But I thought for the first game, he played hard.”
