Pregame
Lots of changes for the Penguins who are playing without Bryan Rust and Ben Kindel tonight, including the surprise omission of Egor Chinakhov who misses another game with a lower body injury. That means Elmer Soderblom, Hendrix Lapierre and the newly called up Rutger McGroarty get the chance to play tonight. Arturs Silovs gets a second start in a row.
The visiting
Panthers look to rebound from last night’s 5-1 loss in Ottawa with this lineup. It’s the first look in the NHL for 6’9” goalie Cooper Black, who sets an NHL record for the tallest netminder in league history.
First period
Good start for the Penguins, they control most of the early play and get the first handful of shots (the Panthers do nab an excellent first shot and a great save by Silovs). Sidney Crosby nearly scores in front off a rebound but a Florida defenseman blocks it. A little later, Crosby springs Rickard Rakell for a breakaway and he gets hooked. Rakell is able to get the shot away so the infraction results in a power play and not a penalty shot.
The first group gets lots of zone time, little of quality chances. The second group forces Florida to clear the puck over the glass for a brief 5v3 and another power play. Doesn’t result in a goal.
Pittsburgh eventually finds that first goal at even strength, courtesy of Nick Robertson’s fifth goal of the season on a nice curl and drag move to get the puck away from the defender while also changing the angle on Black.
Shots are 8-5 Pittsburgh, very quality first period for them with very few lapses and plenty of pressure and puck control. Silovs’ save on the first shot was strong and other than that it was just about all Pens.
Second period
Florida responds with a stronger showing to start the second and earn their first power play of the game when Evgeni Malkin gets the gate for tripping. Silovs makes another good stop on a Seth Jones shot with his blocker and the Pens PK takes care of business.
Florida ends up with 10 of the first 13 shots of the period, the Pens score on the 14th overall shot of the game. Silovs gets the play started by punching the puck out to start a rush the other way. Malkin dishes to the side for Ville Koivunen. Koivunen sauces a pass in for Lapierre, who does a nice job to keep control of the rolling puck on his backhand before flipping to and beating Black on on the forehand. 2-0
The third line builds on that, McGroarty and Andrei Kuzmenko cause all kinds of havoc in front of the net and get Black scrambling around but the goalie recovers with an assist from a desperate defensive player sprawled out in the crease. More Penguin pressure leads to Garnet Hathaway making a very Garnet Hathaway move to hit Kuzmenko from behind into the boards, Pens go to a power play with Kuzmenko needing to see the trainers.
The third Penguin power play ends up empty like the others.
Silovs gets his stick up and clips Sam Bennett, taking a four-minute penalty as a result. The team picks him up with a strong kill, McGroarty lifts a puck way up the ice for Connor Dewar to get a breakaway rush. Rakell and Robertson get a look on a 2-on-1. Neither score though gotta love the effort all over the place.
Pittsburgh survives most of the long PK to end the period, shots on the game are 17-15 FLA. The Panthers were a lot better in the second, the Pens found a way to weather that storm while extending their lead going into the second intermission.
Third period
The Pens kill off the short time on the carryover power play, then Silovs makes a good stop on Matthew Tkachuk from in front of the net. It pays off a minute later, Malkin puts the puck through a sliding Gustav Forsling, who doesn’t get a piece of it. Malkin recovers quickly and snaps the puck by Black on that sort of broken play. 3-0 with 18:23 to go.
Time is ticking off, everything looks in control, Koivunen loses a puck and resorts to taking a player down that (though easy enough to say from the keyboard) he probably didn’t need to do with coverage behind him and far from the net. Florida gets a power play and chance to crawl back into the game with 5:59 to play.
The Panthers even pull the goalie to gain a 6v4 advantage. They hit a post but don’t come any closer to scoring.
Florida gets a o-zone faceoff so they keep the goalie pulled. Robertson scores another on a long-range shot. 4-0 with 2:26 to go.
Rest of the game ends quietly enough, Silovs gets his second shutout of the season and the Pens end their losing streak.
Some thoughts
- Robertson up to six goals on the season, tied with Malkin for the team lead. Despite the three forwards leaving the lineup for this game, Robertson didn’t get a promotion in role/line. That might be a minor footnote at this point since the team can rely on Robertson+Dewar to be the core of their important defensive line. Despite that informal designation, Robertson did what he does best – use his finishing ability to score goals. It seems like he is something of an untapped asset for the team while in not utilized in a more marquee role, but to his credit, he’s showing that he doesn’t need prime minutes or plum offensive-minded, skilled linemates to be productive.
- Two of those players in such a role playing with Evgeni Malkin made a play tonight. Koivunen had the time on the rush to use his vision and playmaking to setup Lapierre. Lapierre, who is not much of a finisher with just now 15 career NHL goals in 165 games, showed some nice hands to score. That’s what the team wants, and seriously needs to see out of guys like that making the most of an opportunity with players like Rust, Kindel and Chinakhov unavailable tonight.
- Speaking of Malkin, that’s three goals in the last four games and six in 11 to start the season. Not bad at all for a 40-year old!
- Loved the game from Silovs on a variety of fronts. Naturally, there’s the fact he stopped all the shots (hot analysis: always great when a goalie does that). Made a few really quality saves when the game was close too. Beyond that, he was active in playing the puck, notably on the sequence that resulted in the Lapierre goal and in other instances besides that. Good on him for elevating and helping the team out as more than just a shot stopper and getting actively involved in helping out in other areas.
- Also was impressed by the Pens strategy playing such a tall goalie. Being 6’9” and 250 pounds has its obvious advantages for blocking out a lot of the net. It’s also a challenge to be that size and be in the goalie crouch. The Pens were shooting a lot (see the Lapierre and Robertson goals) in the areas above the leg pads and under the arms. Dewar shot there on his breakaway too. A lot of times the default at the NHL level is to elevate to the top shelf, be it coincidence or plan on this night the Pens were frequently looking to exploit a different type of area on a different type of goalie than they’d usually see.
- One thing about Kuzmenko is that he’s no stranger to trying difficult but pretty passes. (I always think back to this setup from 2025 when he was with the Kings as the quintessential play of his). A lot of times with the Pens, he’ll wire a pass into an area where there isn’t even a teammate. If there was it would be a big time chance. So maybe it’s low percentage plays in a sense, but in some ways it’s like he operates on a different plane mentally than a lot of his teammates. And, after a 35 assist rookie campaign in 2022-23 he usually gets a rate of about 25 assists per season, so that’s been a problem stretching several teams now. It’s a challenge to rectify how such a skilled player doesn’t produce compared to the talent level.
- That said, one of the best and most noticeable games by Kuzmenko this season. It doesn’t look like he’s going to be the type of force multiplier that changes games on his own but at this point it’s nice to see him look like he’s getting on track a little more.
- It looks good to turn in any direction after a performance like this, one area where the Pens really took control was the penalty kill. Florida had nearly six minutes in the second period on the power play, Pittsburgh yielded all of two shots on goal against (and zero in the nearly four minute stretch late in the period). While no one can be faulted for feeling no lead is ever safe with this team late in a game, at that point they were showing about full control on this game.
- The Penguins improved to 17-2-7 on games where the opponent played the prior night and they did not, per Bob Grove. Can only play what the schedule makers give you, gotta feast in those situations (because heaven knows with a league-high 15 b-2-b games of their own this season, the show will end up on the other foot enough times).
Good time for the Penguins to play one of their most complete games since the opener. Goalie was great, team defense was very mindful and clean, offense was opportunistic and provided more than enough of a cushion. Coming back home did them well after a dreadful road trip, the good news for them is they have a couple more at PPG Paints, next one coming up Saturday night against Nashville.
