Jake Guentzel says he's not having a great season, yet he's third on the Pittsburgh Penguins in scoring.

Everyone knows that flaws that have plagued the Pittsburgh Penguins for a majority of the 2022-23 season.

The bottom six is the obvious one, along with the goaltending and defense, the Penguins have been a flawed team.

The top six forwards seem to be the only group consistently performing and producing at a winning level.

One player within that group, however, is in the midst of a ‘down’ season, and that’s Jake Guentzel.

But wait, how could Guentzel be in the middle of a down year when he’s about to score 30 goals and is hovering around a point per game?

Well, for starters, Guentzel said himself that he hasn’t been good enough; on February 22, he described his season as ‘not too good, not too great.’

At that point, Guentzel had played in 52 games and held 51 points (24G-27A); those are solid numbers, what would make him say he hasn’t been good enough?

The expectations for Guentzel heading into the season were sky high; there were genuine predictions that picked him to score 50 goals or 100 points.

Guentzel definitely won’t reach those numbers, but sitting at 61 points (29G-32A) in 63 games is still outstanding.

Last season in 76 games, Guentzel notched his second career 40-goal season and tacked on 44 assists for 84 poitns, all numbers he likely won’t hit in 2022-23.

At the end of the season there will have been a dip in production, but not enough to write off his year as negative, just a slight decline in a year everyone saw volatility.

In a year where the Penguins struggled as a team to find regular success, it makes sense that everyone’s numbers would slide a little.

Despite Guentzel’s self proclaimed ‘not too good’ year, he’s third on the team in points and tied with Sidney Crosby for most goals.

The production isn’t where anyone expected, but he is still performing as one of the best players on the team right now.

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