A hulking new Penguins' forward is netting goals and leveraging size alongside Evgeni Malkin and Anthony Mantha, and his unexpected start to the season is elevating the team's offense.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins signed 6-foot-6, 232-pound forward Justin Brazeau to a two-year, $3 million contract this offseason, little did they know that they were getting one of the league's premier goal-scorers.
Well, maybe that's a stretch. But, in the earlygoing of the 2025-26 season, it's hard to argue with the results.
Brazeau, 27, has four goals in his first four games, which leads all Penguins' players and is tied for third among all NHL players. And, given some of the names he currently shares that tie with - Kirill Kaprizov, Nathan MacKinnon, Jack Eichel, and three others - it's safe to say that Brazeau finds himself in a place he didn't necessarily expect up to this point.
"It's been a bit of a whirlwind," Brazeau said. "Obviously, anytime you get to play with players like [Evgeni] Malkin and those guys, you try to take the best opportunities and make the most of it."
And he certainly has made the most of it up to this point - as has his "mutant line," as Penguins' color analyst Colby Armstrong calls it. He has been sharing a line with Malkin and Anthony Mantha up to this point, meaning no one on that line is below 6-foot-5.
The trio seems to be using that size to their advantage, too, as Malkin has six assists and Mantha has a goal and three points in the first four games to start the season, giving that line a combined 13 points. Their combination of size, smarts, and net-front ability - in Brazeau's case - has made for a lethal combination so far.
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"We're doing a good job using [our size] down low, making sure we're hard on pucks," Brazeau said. "I think we're a line where, in the offensive zone, we can do a really good job of kind of holding onto the puck and making it hard on other teams to defend us and stuff like that.
"And, obviously, Geno's got a ton of skill and loves to play with the puck. So, for guys like me and Anthony, our job's pretty easy just to make sure we're getting pucks back for him and getting down there, and I think both of us have the ability to make plays and score when we get those chances."
And the results are showing up in the metrics, too. Among forward lines who have played at least 30 minutes together up to this point, Malkin, Brazeau, and Mantha rank sixth in the NHL in expected goals share at 69.6 percent, according to MoneyPuck. They are often deployed in offensive zone starts, and once they get going on the cycle, they're hard to contain because of that imposing size.
It's not just about the size, though, as Brazeau has found a way to use his size and skill as a lethal combination - even if this is a relatively recent development.
With just 99 career NHL games under his belt, Brazeau has amassed a total of 20 goals and 33 points. The undrafted right wing has showcased some smooth hands and goal-scoring ability in the early part of this season, and there clearly seems to have been a bit of untapped potential in that arena.
But Brazeau scoring goals at this rate wasn't necessarily something that the Penguins could have predicted. Of course, he won't maintain an 82-goal pace for the entire season, but given that his best NHL season up to this point was an 11-goal, 22-point campaign split between the Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild last season, it's safe to say that he will likely, at least, blow that goal number out of the water this season.
And that could be especially true if he spends the majority of the season playing with Malkin, who Brazeau has been able to find some easy chemistry with.
"As more and more skates go on, you kind of learn what he kind of likes to do on the ice, learning to read off of him a little bit," Brazeau said after training camp concluded. "He's obviously got a lot of skill and likes to play the puck, so you've got to give him some space, and if you think he's in trouble, you go help him out. But I think I've gotten more comfortable in learning to read off of him."
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