If you're someone who wanted or expected the Pittsburgh Penguins to be basement-dwellers in hopes of drafting Gavin McKenna in 2026, it may be time for you to begin rethinking those expectations.
Because - after a dominant 4-1 win against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday - there is no one in the NHL better than the Penguins.
Pending the results of a few other games on Thursday, the Penguins have an 8-2-2 record with 18 points on the season - which is more than any other team in the league. Pittsburgh has accomplished that record by winning hockey games in a number of different ways, and they have earned a few points that they probably wouldn't have at this time last season.
But, on Thursday, the two points they got were certainly earned.
In the first 20 minutes of the game, the Wild came on pretty strong. They captured the lead midway through the opening frame when Kirill Kaprizov put home his seventh of the season, and they took that 1-0 lead into first intermission. The primary reason they didn't have a few more tallies on the board was because of the strong play by Penguins' goaltender Tristan Jarry.
However, the tide started to turn in the second period, and the Penguins did not look back.
Just 2:18 into the second, Penguins' defenseman Ryan Shea - who has found new life this season - took a hard-earned feed from Tommy Novak at the top of the left circle, and he one-timed it into the back of the net for his second of the season to tie the game at 1-1. The Penguins slowly began to take over the game from that point forward, and they took it over entirely in the third.
In the final 25 minutes of the game, the Penguins outshot the Wild, 20-9, and it showed in the results, too. Six and a half minutes into the third, Shea executed a perfect pass from the left point to the net-front, where Bryan Rust was waiting for an easy tap-in to put the Penguins ahead, 2-1. Just seconds after the Penguins scored the go-ahead goal, they were awarded a power play when Tyler Pitlick went to the box for elbowing.
And on that power play, 18-year-old center Ben Kindel - fresh off the news that he would remain at the NHL level by playing in his 10th game of the season, activating his entry-level contract - capitalized by pouncing on a net-front rebound to put the Penguins up by two. Anthony Mantha added an empty-net goal at the end after a two-minute shift in the defensive zone, and the Penguins were assertive winners.
"We’re taking each day as it comes," Rust said. "I don’t think we’re trying to get too far ahead of ourselves, and I think we’re having a lot of fun with it. The good and the bad. Trying to learn from the bad, learn from the good, too. I think we’re just trying to have as much fun as possible."
Here are a few notes and observations from this one:
- Make no mistake: This was a dominating performance from the Penguins in the final 40 minutes, and especially in the last 20.
The third period is one of the best periods of Penguins' hockey I've witnessed in quite some time. They completely took over the game, overwhelming Minnesota with their forecheck and outskating them to oblivion. They were suffocating in their defensive pressure, and they didn't let the Wild have any moments of sustained pressure outside of the empty-net situation.
Most importantly - as has been the case with every single third-period lead this season - the Penguins didn't blow, nor was there ever concern that they were going to. This team seems to play its best hockey when playing ahead, and that's something very different from the past several seasons.
The way they play in structure with leads is one of the reasons why I think what they're doing is somewhat sustainable. Sure, the luck is bound to run a little dry at some point. But when teams play as well as the Penguins did Thursday, they tend to make their own luck.
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- Let's not underscore that the only reason the Penguins were able to take over this game in the first place is because their goaltender was so good in the first 20.
Akin to most of his other performances - and Arturs Silovs's, too - this season, Jarry was simply outstanding in goal. He stopped 26 of 27 Wild shots, and most of those came in the game's first half.
Once again, he gave his team a chance to win. And they certainly took advantage. What a difference good goaltending makes for a team.
- The penalty kill was a difference-maker in this game. Coming into it, the Wild owned the No. 1 power play in the league, and the Penguins' PK completely outclassed them on all four of their opportunities.
Really good stuff from that unit, which has killed 12 of its last 13.
- One line that did not enjoy a particularly strong evening was Evgeni Malkin's line. The trio of Malkin, Mantha, and Brazeau were frequently hemmed in their own zone and failed to generate much at all. According to Moneypuck, they were on the ice for six shot attempts for and 25 against, and their expected goals share was a meager 23.4 percent.
I think this is something we're bound to see with this line every once and a while when they can't get anything going offensively. They can overwhelm teams with their size and smarts in the offensive zone and in transition, but they're also slow, which doesn't do them any favors in the d-zone.
It's no reason to be concerned at this point. Again, expect this at times from them.
- What a game it was from Kindel upon learning that the Penguins plan to keep him in Pittsburgh for the time being.
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It is astounding how much this kid drives play as a teenager. His line with Novak and Ville Koivunen had a whopping 91 percent expected goals share in this game, and he was the primary driver of play. That's been the case for most of the season, too.
It's hard to quantify just how impressive Kindel has been at 18 years old. He is special. This is a very, very good player that the Penguins have on their hands.
- The Penguins' defensive corps deserve a lot of love for their performances tonight.
Shea is simply a different player this season than he has been for his entire Penguins' tenure. His seven points are already a career-high, and he is second only to Erik Karlsson in points among Penguins' defensemen.
Speaking of Karlsson, he was phenomenal yet again in this game. The Penguins go as Karlsson goes, and he's been going for nearly every game this season. The level he is playing at makes the Penguins a much, much better hockey team.
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On Thursday, it was confirmed by <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins">Pittsburgh Penguins</a>' head coach Dan Muse that 18-year-old center <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/pittsburgh-penguins/players/penguins-top-prospect-ben-kindel-to-remain-in-pittsburgh">Ben Kindel will remain in the NHL through his 10th game</a>, meaning the first year of his three-year entry-level contract will kick in.
And his defensive partner deserves a lot of praise, too. Parker Wotherspoon has been unbelievable, and he was doing everything right in this game. The Penguins are getting a lot of value out of Wotherspoon and his two-year, $2 million contract, and it will end up being a bargain for them if he continues to play like a bona fide top-pairing shutdown defenseman next to one of the best play-driving defensemen of the last 30 years.
- The Penguins will meet the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, and it will be the toughest test for them to date. The Jets are just behind the Penguins in the league standings with 16 points, and they've been playing some really good hockey.
This has been a pretty good matchup for the Penguins in recent years. Let's see if they can continue the momentum from the back half of this game against the Wild. They're - simply put - beginning to look like a pretty good hockey team.
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