We got our first look at the Penguins without Evgeni Malkin Thursday and, predictably, it wasn’t all that encouraging. Or was it?
Mike Sullivan’s makeshift lines put 42 shots on New Jersey’s Scott Wedgewood and generated 68 shots in all. “Obviously when you’re trying to manufacture some offense you’ve got to shoot the puck and try to create those next play opportunities,” Sullivan reflected after the 3-2 defeat.
”We had a lot of chances at the net front and off rebounds,” he continued, “we didn’t finish off as many of them as we’d like.”
Both goals came from Sidney Crosby’s line – Jake Guentzel’s power play and Bryan Rust’s too-little, too late tally with under 5 seconds left. Crosby himself had 8 shots on goal and took 3 others that missed the net so those opportunities were there.
Sullivan felt the other lines could have done more. “Well, we need to be better,” Sullivan said. “We didn’t get the result we wanted so it’s not good enough. We’ll take a look at our team and see what adjustments we need to make but we need to get better.”
Jared McCann should finally return Saturday after missing the last six games. Although he’s been mostly a winger in Pittsburgh, expect McCann to be used at center as long as Malkin and Teddy Blueger both remain unavailable. Sullivan loves guys who play with speed and a McCann-Kasperi Kapanen-Brandon Tanev combination certainly fits that description.
Evan Rodrigues would slide to the third line with Zach Aston-Reese and Sam Lafferty which would allow Mark Jankowski to return to a fourth line role between Colton Sceviour and Anthony Angello, a line was just starting to gel over the last week or so. “Recently I think my line - we’ve been really hitting our stride” Jankowski agreed, which was giving the Penguins a solid 10 minutes per game.
At some point relatively soon, we will get an idea of how serious Malkin’s lower body injury is. But, even without 2 of their top 3 centers, the Pens should be able to pick up points with their next four games against the Devils and the toothless Sabres.
In the meantime, Guentzel is dusting off some of his favorite clichés. “Everyone’s got to step up here, we gotta do it by committee,” Guentzel said. “We can’t take any nights of and it’s gotta be a full 60 so we’ll make sure we’re better on Saturday and go from there.”
Don’t know if they’ll face him again over the weekend, but the Penguins are now 0-2 against Wedgewood, who stopped 79 of 81 shots in those two games. The last time they lost to him, however - 3-0 five years ago - they won their next eight games then went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Right now, Pens fans can use a positive vibe.