Down 2-1 on Saturday night with the clock ticking away, the Penguins got a signature goal from their three best players on the ice to tie the score. Erik Karlsson and Sidney Crosby assisted on Rickard Rakell’s late score to tie the game. It was a goal the team desperately needed, and the type of play they haven’t made that often early in this year Crosby making a wonderful pass to put a winger in position to score, and then the winger actually scoring.
Unsurprisingly, it was a weight off Rakell’s shoulders to tally just his second goal of the season that is now 12 games old.
“It felt so good. The amount of looks I had – first off, in this game – my teammates setting me up for all these chances, it definitely feels good to put one in,” Rakell said after the game.
Despite the lack of results, Rakell has been generating chances. He’s earned that good feeling and confidence boost from scoring due to all the chances that he’s created. Rakell was stopped on a breakaway earlier in the game, and even before that few players in the league have generated as much as Rakell has at 5v5. This data is before the Nashville game, even then, Rakell didn’t score a 5v5 goal (since the Penguins had pulled their goalie, it was a 6v5 situation).
Rakell has 30 shots on the year, enough to lead the team by a wide margin (Kris Letang, Ben Kindel and Nick Robertson all have 23 a piece). It’s no secret or deep analysis that the Penguins need Rakell to pitch in. Rakell scored 59 goals in the last two full seasons from 2024-25 to 2025-26, in the ballpark with names like Kirill Marchenko, Brock Nelson, Bo Hovat and not too far off Sidney Crosby (62).
Rakell isn’t a player the team can afford to have in a slump and expect to get good results. The team’s record in first 11 games of the season illustrate that, as did Rakell stepping up to score Saturday in a game the Pens found a way to win in overtime.
The stakes are only raised now that Bryan Rust is on the shelf with injury for at least six weeks, the importance of a player like Rakell only gets magnified when another one of the tried-and-true options is unavailable.
The good news for the Pens may be that Rakell has been generating all those chances, it would be a more difficult conversation to have if this was a player failing to even get in position to score. That hasn’t been the problem to this point. It’s been about finishing those chances, which can be an area that ebbs and flows for even the most consistent and reliable players over stretches to go hot and cold. For someone as skilled as Rakell, enough chances will lead to goals eventually. Such was what happened on Saturday, getting a prime chance sent his way by Crosby, and then finally breaking through to put the puck in the back of the net.
Rakell was cold early in the season, the Penguins could sure benefit from it if the late goal in their last game was a sign that he is coming out of it and about to start filling the net, as he typically will do over the long haul. The Pittsburgh first line needs it, the power play needs it and the team at large would be in for a big boost if some more red lights behind the goalie follow from the chances Rakell has been generating in front of him.
