Penguins Hopeful Power Play Can Catch Fire
With a pair of power play goals, the Pittsburgh Penguins have a weight lifted from their shoulders.
After a full month of missed opportunities and failing to score on the man advantage, the Pittsburgh Penguins finally found the back of the net for a power play goal.
Not just once, but the Penguins scored while a man up twice against the Arizona Coyotes seeing a goal from their first unit (Jake Guentzel) and second unit (Jeff Carter).
With the long wait finally over, everyone is hopeful that things can continue to roll at a more consistent pace.
“We can’t relax now that we got one,” Guentzel said. “We got to get some momentum here. Obviously, to get two is huge. We got to build off of this and keep going.”
Those two tallies on five opportunities pushed the Penguins success rate up to 11.36% and 28th in the NHL; it’s a small movement, but if they can find a regular pace, they should quickly find league average.
Regardless of where the power play goes, the Penguins are excited for a moment that they don’t have that cloud hanging over their head.
“Hopefully we don’t have to talk about it anymore,” Carter said. “Honestly, I think the big thing tonight was, if you look at it, we were simplifying and shooting pucks.”
Over the course of their month between power play goals, the Penguins missed on 36 consecutive chances in 13 straight games.
They recorded only seven power play goals through 26 games with six of them coming in the first 10 games of the year.
The Penguins entered the year with high expectations considering the personnel outside of guys like Guentzel and Carter.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are always threats to score as is Kris Letang; not to mention the Penguins added Erik Karlsson over the offseason.
The possibilities seemed endless, but nothing was going their direction; now with two new goals under their belt, maybe this can be the start of a cozy streak.
“I think they believe in it,” Head coach Mike Sullivan said. “As I said to you guys all along, the care factor is high. It means a lot to them; they understand the responsibility they have with the power play. To see these guys get rewarded tonight, for me is terrific.”
Struggling to score on the power play has been the biggest factor to why the Penguins are in the position they’re in.
Sitting well out of a playoff spot, the Penguins have seen multiple games slip away thanks to their power play.
This time around, it was main reason for their victory and something everyone hopes can find a level of consistency.
“Hopefully, it’ll give us something to build on,” Sullivan said. “It should give us a little bit of confidence. Hopefully we won’t be squeezing our sticks quite as hard.”
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