Drew O'Connor, Alex Nylander Perfect Infusion of Youth for Aging Penguins
A pair of the Pittsburgh Penguins youngest players could be the biggest help.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are the league’s oldest team. However, that hasn’t derailed them as they continue to stake claim to a playoff spot as the end of the regular season draws near.
Typically, older teams don’t tend to succeed in the postseason after a long grind through the regular season. That could certainly be the case as the Penguins seem to be on a crash course with either Boston or Carolina in round one.
If they can pull off two massive victories in the upcoming games against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, they could find themselves in an easier matchup, at least in theory.
But despite their age, the Penguins do have two young guns making an impact in Pittsburgh late in the season.
Drew O’Connor and Alex Nylander have taken their chances and parlayed them into what should be permanent roles in the Penguins regular lineup. Injuries to bottom-six guys have given them the opportunity to play but they’re playing their way into regular roles.
O’Connor has spent much of the past two seasons toiling between being a fringe roster player and a lineup regular. The coaching staff asked him to show more snarl and use his speed to his advantage if he really wanted to become a regular part of the Penguins’ bottom-six. He’s doing that to the fullest extent.
O’Connor has five goals and eight points in 32 games this season but hadn’t really become a lineup regular until midway through February when Ryan Poehling went down with an injury.
His stats don’t light up the score sheet but O’Connor has been forechecking like a menace, skates very hard and does all the little things you want someone who plays around 10-12 minutes a night to do.
Since O’Connor entered the lineup, the Penguins are 8-5-1. While I’m not pinning the winning record on his arrival, he’s shown to be a more productive piece than castaways like Brock McGinn, Kasperi Kapanen, and Teddy Blueger were.
The undrafted 24-year old forward is carving out a role in the lineup that makes the Penguins a better overall team.
Nylander was promoted on an emergency basis twice in the last week but just might be someone that could make the Penguins better all throughout the lineup.
After posting 50 points in 54 AHL games, the Penguins gave him the opportunity to play in Pittsburgh after a few injuries ravaged their roster.
He was immediately put on the second line with Jason Zucker and Evgeni Malkin. The fit on that line looks seamless at the moment.
Nylander seems to have immediate chemistry with Zucker and assisted on a goal in his Penguins debut. He is a former top-10 draft pick so the talent is evidently there and he’s shown early glimpses of that so far.
One of the biggest knocks on Nylander was his inability to commit to the two-way game, something you must do in a Mike Sullivan-coached system. He spent time improving upon that in the minors and has looked capable of doing that through his first three appearances in a Penguins uniform.
His presence in the top six has allowed the Penguins to move Rickard Rakell down to the third line and give him a chance to drive his own line. In the two games since that move was made, Rakell has scored. Talk about pushing the right buttons.
The Penguins have a lot of good forwards when fully healthy so if they get to that point, they’re going to have some decisions to make. At the current moment, O’Connor and Nylander have more than earned a chance to stay in Pittsburgh’s lineup.
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