Jason Zucker celebrates his first goal for the Penguins Friday night at PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY

Penguins

Zucker's breakout gives 'Jaking it' new meaning

Feb 15, 2020 • 11:51 am

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Jason Zucker wore a pair of Jake Guentzel's gloves when he made his Penguins debut Tuesday night.

That worked out so well that Zucker apparently decided to borrow Guentzel's hands for Game No. 2.

It's not just that Zucker scored two goals in the 4-1 victory against the Canadiens at PPG Paints Arena Friday night; it's that both required the kind of deft touch that allowed Guentzel to pile up 20 of them in 39 games before he had to have his right shoulder surgically repaired.

The first came when he one-timed a cross-ice feed from Sidney Crosby ...

... and the second after Zucker drove to the net, got inside position on defenseman Brett Kulak and chipped a Marcus Pettersson feed past Montreal goalie Carey Price:

"He was flying," Crosby said of Zucker. "He created a lot and got a couple of good goals for us."

It was the first multiple-goal game of the season for Zucker, who had not scored in his previous six games.

No surprise, then, that Zucker characterized his evening as "a fun night."

While he said several times that "it's just about the win" and not his individual achievements, the reality is that after making a pretty good first impression three nights earlier, he made an outstanding one on the sellout crowd of 18,650 Friday. Those fans included his wife and two of his three children, who traveled here from Minnesota for the weekend.

"No matter how that game went tonight, it meant a lot for me to have them here," he said.

OK, but if a connection between the way Zucker played and the presence of his family members can be proven, his wife and kids just might find that their flight back to Minneapolis has been canceled. Every day until the Penguins' playoff run is over.

While Zucker got the game-winner and primary insurance goal, Zach Aston-Reese scored one that had no impact on the outcome but likely did wonders for his psychological well-being.

He hit an empty net at 18:16 of the third to give the Penguins their final margin of victory and, in the process, end a run of 14 consecutive games without a goal. Especially when that streak came in the immediate wake of one during which he scored once in 16.

"It's a lot easier when there's no goalie there," Aston-Reese said, smiling.

That surely was the case on this night, because Price was outstanding for much of the game. He had little chance to stop any of the three shots that eluded him, and got a piece of several others that looked as if they should have made it past him, too.

"We've seen that before, especially here, where he makes some big saves, timely saves," Crosby said. "We did a good job of taking advantage of those chances in the second. When you get those looks, you have to bury them. Especially against a guy like that."

Good as Price was, however, he was only the second-best British Columbia native to play goal in this game.

Tristan Jarry, who acknowledged that Price was one of the goaltenders he admired during his formative years, turned aside 34 of 35 Montreal shots, being beaten only by a Tomas Tatar shot on a power play with 53.2 seconds remaining in the second period.

Tatar's goal whittled the Penguins' lead to 2-1, but Montreal's comeback hopes had barely begun to rise when Zucker punctured them by scoring his second of the game 17.1 seconds before the intermission. The Penguins could not have hoped for a quicker or more emphatic response.

"There are critical moments in games that significantly influence the outcome," Mike Sullivan said. "The shift or two right after a goal is scored, on either side, is really important. That's one of those critical moments in games where there's an opportunity to try to influence the game in a positive way. When we get scored against and come out shortly thereafter and score the way they did, that gives our bench a huge boost. Those types of moments go a long way to controlling momentum."

Or, for the Canadiens, killing it.

"That third goal really hurt us," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "We'd just gotten ourselves back in the game. ... That was a pretty good dagger."

Crosby assisted Kris Letang's power-play goal at 7:25 of the opening period, as well as the two Zucker scored during a 102-second span late in the second. Zucker labeled the pass he got from Crosby "incredible," although it's worth noting that he also called the one from Pettersson "unbelievable."

How long the Zucker-Crosby-Dominik Simon line will remain intact is impossible to predict, but the group seems to be developing some chemistry after just a couple of games together.

"He's a great player," Simon said. "It's fun to play with him."

Zucker said that, "I'm trying to learn these guys, the way they play," adding that, "it'll be a learning curve, still."

If anything, that should be encouraging for the Penguins, because it suggests the unit could become even more efficient and effective as its members get accustomed to playing together.

"I just think that Jason's going to get more comfortable with every day that he's here," Sullivan said. "We're excited about having him. We think he's only going to get better."

Zucker probably won't get any faster, but the Penguins are fine with that because he already gets around the ice faster than most. He is a good fit for a system that emphasizes skating, the way Sullivan's does.

"I thought his speed was more noticeable tonight," Sullivan said. "You could see how good he is on the transition, when the puck changes from defense to offense. ... I thought that was much more evident tonight."

That probably is because Zucker has had a few days to settle into his new surroundings. Twenty-four hours before he pulled on a Penguins sweater for the first time, he was still on Minnesota's payroll.

"He just looked comfortable out there (compared to Tuesday)," Crosby said. "It's hard. There are just so many new things thrown at you. ... Today probably felt more like a regular game day for him."

The victory that Zucker helped to make possible raised the Penguins' record to 35-15-6 and lifted them to within three points of first-place Washington in the Metropolitan Division. They also have a game-in-hand on the Capitals

That's considerably different from the situation Zucker was in with Minnesota, where coach Bruce Boudreau was fired Friday and the Wild is marooned outside the Western Conference playoff field.

And, yeah, he's noticed that things aren't the same here.

"It's a winning culture," Zucker said. "You can feel that. I felt that the day I got here. I felt that the very first game. There's a different feeling here, in a very great way. I'm just excited to be a part of it."

Sounds like he borrowed Jake Guentzel's attitude, too.