A plethora of injuries to the Penguins' forward unit has afforded the sniper a massive opportunity to build on his offensive production.
With the Pittsburgh Penguins set to begin the regular season having a league-high number of players on injured reserve and/or non-roster, some larger changes and smaller tweaks had to be made to their lineup going into their Sept. 30 opener against the Philadelphia Flyers.
And one small tweak should be a big opportunity for a player the Penguins have some pretty high hopes for.
Left winger Egor Chinakhov, who broke out after being traded to Pittsburgh mid-season last year, was skating on the top power play unit with Erik Karlsson, Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell and Tommy Novak during Tuesday's team practice.
Chinakhov set some high expectations when he registered 18 goals and 36 points in 43 games with the Penguins in 2025-26 - with only two goals and eight points coming on the power play, as he was, primarily, on the team's second unit - and that's a number he can only hope to build on by receiving top power play minutes and getting fed by the team's very best players.
"I mean, it's awesome," Chinakhov said. "It's a great opportunity to show what I can do, and yeah, it feels good."
With forward Bryan Rust (upper-body) on injured reserve week-to-week to begin the season - in addition to forwards Ben Kindel, Justin Brazeau and Andrei Kuzmenko being designated as IR and/or non-roster - the door swung wide open for Chinakhov to seize an opportunity and to make an impact on the Penguins' top unit, which was top-five in the league for most of the season in 2025-26 and finished seventh by the end of it.
There are a couple of elite puck distributors - specifically, Crosby and Karlsson - in the primary group that Chinakhov joins, which should give him ample opportunity to use his elite-level shot. According to NHL EDGE, Chinakhov's hardest shot last season came in at 99.03 mph - and was a wrist shot - and he is 99th percentile in the league for shot speed, joining a group at the top dominated by defensemen.
So, Chinakhov's mindset is quite simple.
"Just keep shooting," he said with a smile. "Same as always."
Captain Sidney Crosby agrees with that mindset for Chinakhov as well, given his wrist shot.
"I mean, that's pretty nice to have, you know?" Crosby said, also with nod and a smile. "A lot of people would like to have that wrist shot. If he gets some space there, I think he'll have four guys telling him to shoot it, that's for sure. Maybe even including some people in the stands at the same time.
"He's got a big shot, so if we can provide a screen or get him in areas where he can get some time to get it off, yeah, I think that's a big part of it."
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