Pregame
It’s a new year, and it’s a new Penguin team! Teenagers Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke make the NHL debuts, Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha, Parker Wotherspoon, Caleb Jones and Arturs Silovs make their Pittsburgh debut.
The opponent it the Mike Sullivan led New York Rangers.
First period
Nice touch for the first shift of the season, the two rookies in Kindel and Brunicke are joined by the three 20-year teammates in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang for the drop of the puck. Not subtle to see the future meet the present joined by the past, but poetic just the same.
It starts off as a really good shift, at that. The Penguins spend the whole time in the NYR end, Crosby gets a couple looks down low. Finally the Rangers stabilize and get out an Adam Fox falls easily when he feels a little contact from the back by Brunicke and New York has their first power play and Brunicke gets a ‘welcome to the NHL’ moment.
The Rangers fail to score on their power play, the Penguins do the same later with their first man-advantage of the season.
Pittsburgh strikes for the game’s first goal with 32 seconds to go in the period. Evgeni Malkin slips past Vincent Trocheck on a faceoff and gets the puck to the net. Justin Brazeau is there and the big guy finishes to his backhand with authority. 1-0 Pens.
Shots are 10-7 Pens through 20 minutes, and they have the only goal. It’s deserved too, Pittsburgh had a strong period and had the better of the play.
Second period
Fairly uneventful second period in terms of scoring. Ville Koivunen came closest hitting a post with a little over five minutes to go.
Kris Letang went to the penalty box with just over a minute to go for a tripping call. The Pens survive to the horn.
Shots were 13-7 NYR in the second, who started to find their legs and settle into the game a lot more than the early going.
Third period
Letang made a great breakup to steer the puck to Mantha, who was behind the defense. Igor Shesterkin robbed Mantha with a big glove save on a nice shot that had a lot of velocity.
There were no more goals until the Rangers got desperate and pulled the goalie late. Brazeau notched his second of the game and Blake Lizotte opened his account with a long-range empty net goal to set the score at the 3-0 final score.
Some thoughts
- Nice start for the Pens, if nothing else. Last year when it was PIT/NYR in the opening game and already 3-0 Rangers by the end of the first period. Between a new coach, the youngsters, the other new players – and yeah a new goalie – it definitely looked fresh for the Penguins this time around. One single night makes it way too early to get too up or too down over a long, long season, but hey, it’s something to hang your hat on in optimistic hopes that maybe changing enough parts around the core players could lead to something different.
- Justin Brazeau was an intriguing signing, and one Kyle Dubas unearthed for the first time a long time ago. Again with the “let’s not go crazy” disclaimers, but hands like displayed on that first goal usually aren’t on 6’6” players. Brazeau had 16 NHL goals in 95 career games entering tonight, his glow up might prove to be temporary or limited for one night at least he was a nice under-the-radar addition today and exactly what Dubas wants to improve in the short-term.
- If nothing else, it’s also fun to see a true big boy line with Brazeau joining 6’5” linemates in Malkin and Anthony Mantha. Hard to remember anytime a scoring line had all 6’5”+ players on it.
- New guy focus: the penalty on the first shift looked like it jarred Brunicke a little bit. Later in the first he would play a little too careful and let his opponent cut to the goal. Some other of his puck touches weren’t as poised as they usually are. He’ll never be less experienced than he was tonight and that added action is only going to help him improve. Brunicke’s stat-line went: 15:21 played, two shot attempts (one on goal, one missed net), two giveaways, two blocked shots.
- For the other first timer, Kindel played and if you didn’t know he was 18, you wouldn’t by his play. No huge standout moments, he’s not a “take over the whole game” dominant type of player, but nothing not to be impressed by either. Nice opening game, sound, smart player who didn’t look out of sorts. As pointed out on the broadcast, Kindel took Koivunen’s spot with Crosby-Rakell with three minutes to go in the game when the Pens were nursing a 1-0 lead. That tells you all you need to know about how much faith and confidence the coaches have in Kindel’s two-way ability. Kindel ended the night with 15:11 played, two shots attempts (one on net, one blocked), one giveaway, one blocked shot and a winner on 4/5 faceoffs.
- Erik Karlsson alert: stellar game. He’s playing like a guy who has something to prove (which he does, to get onto Team Sweden for the Olympics). Karlsson’s skating and puck control was dy-no-mite, very encouraging game.
- Motion to revise this article to move Parker Wotherspoon into the worst new number on the team. Wearing No. 28 as a left shot defenseman, it’s too close to Marcus Pettersson who played in Pittsburgh from 2018-25. Wotherspoon listed at 6’1” is quite a bit shorter than Pettersson, but hockey is played so much with a lean/hunch that it slides right by a lot of the time. That said, Wotherspoon was fine without much other commentary besides the mind bend of thinking Pettersson was back.
- Not much from Sidney Crosby or his line today, quiet game for Crosby after that first shift. Not that it’s a worry, just an observation.
- Silovs was perfect stopping all 25 Ranger shots. The advanced stats say the Rangers got 2.56 expected goals based on the shot location, based on shot placement it was a lot less. Not to take anything away from Silovs, and perhaps to credit his positioning but a lot of the shots were fired right into him. Not to say he didn’t make a few impressive stops, he did, just that overall it wasn’t like Pittsburgh needed their goalie to be great. 5v5 scoring chances were 33-21 in the game, a lot of it was played outside of the Pens’ end. Silovs manned the fort effectively.
In the end, a nice workmanlike effort from the Penguins to win essentially a 1-0 game until the empty nets were tacked on. They gave the New York crowd nothing at all to cheer about and went about their business well. It’s only one night in a long season, yet that night couldn’t have gone much better in Dan Muse’s mind when it would come to dreaming up the perfect way to out-work, out-chance and out-execute the opposition on the road and earn the first victory of the season.
The Pens are at home on Thursday to meet up with the Islanders and try to build off what they did tonight. Let the season begin!
