Evgeni Malkin shields the puck from the Red Wings' Tyler Bertuzzi, Saturday night in Detroit. - AP

Penguins

Malkin, Guentzel step up against Red Wings

Dec 8, 2019 • 3:08 am

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DETROIT -- Evgeni Malkin and Jake Guentzel have been playing well together since Sidney Crosby has been out of the Penguins' lineup, but they were on another level Saturday night.

Malkin and Guentzel each recorded a goal and two assists as the Penguins went on to defeat the Red Wings 5-3 here at Little Caesars Arena.

Guentzel opened the scoring 5:37 into the game with his 16th goal of the season, assisted by Kris Letang and Malkin:

Malkin scored midway through the second period, his eighth goal of the season and the 399th of his career, set up by Guentzel and Chad Ruhwedel:

"He's playing at a high caliber," Guentzel said of Malkin's game. "It's just fun to be part of the journey and along for the ride with him. Just the way he's playing is at the top of his game right now, it's pretty fun to see him like that and go with him like this."

"We haven't played much before," Malkin said of Guentzel. "But when Sid was injured, Coach gave us more time. We learn each other. I knew how he plays, he knows how I play, we support each other. We're happy with what we're doing right now."

Guentzel said that in this time playing alongside of Malkin, he's really learned just how skilled Malkin is -- "The fakes, the passes, he can do it all. When you play with him you know it's the little things that make him the player he is."

Malkin said that in the time he's been with Guentzel, he's learned how smart of a player Guentzel is. -- "He doesn't hold the puck so much, the offensive zone pass, he looks to the net and has an unbelievable pass. He's really smart."

Mike Sullivan added after the game that he believes Bryan Rust's speed is a "great complement" to those two, as well as his forechecking, his ability to force turnovers and provide support to Malkin and Guentzel, and allow Malkin and Guentzel to take advantage of more opportunities.

Offense aside, Sullivan has also noticed a lot of growth in Malkin's defensive game, which has contributed to that line's success.

"I'm thrilled with Geno's game right now," Sullivan said. "The offense is obvious to everyone, what he's doing for us offensively. But he's winning faceoffs now. We're using him in D-zone situations where we're relying on him to win faceoffs. He's playing within structure. He's always a guy that with his instincts, he's going to go off the grid a little bit. That's what makes him unique. We certainly don't want to discourage that, we want to encourage him to act on his instincts offensively. But what has impressed our coaching staff is that when we don't have the puck, his play away from the puck, he's playing within the structure and the team concept. As a result, he's having success at both ends of the rink."

The contributions didn't just come from the big guns, though. After the Red Wings' morning skate, I wrote about how even though both of these teams have been dealing with serious injury problems through the first quarter of the season, the Penguins' depth has carried them while the Red Wings' lack of depth has them sitting at the bottom of the league's standings.

The Penguins' offensive depth is perhaps best exemplified by their number of unique goal scorers this season. They entered this game with 23 unique goal scorers this season, the most unique scorers of any team in the league by two players. That number grew to 24 with Ruhwedel's first-period goal, his first of the season:

"It felt good," Ruhwedel told me after the game. "It's always good to get the first one of the season out of the way. Just a good play by Geno. He drew their defenders, and that opened a lane to the net. It was a good screen by Rusty, and the puck had eyes. ... Having scoring depth throughout your lineup is huge, and hopefully we can keep that up."

In a game that was a little tight toward the end like this one was, those contributions from unlikely sources can be the difference maker.

"I think it's helped us grab the points that we've had here over the last few weeks with some of the injuries that we've endured," Sullivan said. "We have some pretty good offensive players that aren't in our lineup right now. It's hard to just rely on one or two guys to create the offense for you. ... To this point, our power play has been kind of hit or miss, we started to get some traction there for awhile, and they started to score a few goals for us, but five-on-five, our offensive production has been pretty good throughout our lineup."

Dominik Kahun scored an early third-period goal to make it 4-1, and after the Red Wings cut that lead to one goal with goals from Filip Hronek and Dylan Larkin, John Marino sealed the win with an empty-net goal with 8.3 seconds remaining in the game.

• Matt Murray made 25 saves on 28 shots in the win.

"I thought it was real solid," Sullivan said of Murray's performance. "He made some big saves for us at key times. I thought he was real solid. Especially down the stretch when they pushed."

• The fourth line of Alex Galchenyuk, Sam Lafferty, and Stefan Noesen was pretty bad as a unit, although Lafferty and Noesen had good isolated individual moments. Galchenyuk didn't. He was the only Penguins forward to not attempt a single shot, and his defensive game just isn't there. He doesn't have the skillset of a fourth-line player but he doesn't belong in this top-six right now, either.

• The Penguins blocked a lot of shots (14) compared to the Red Wings (5). They also had more opportunities to block shots, given that the Red Wings had 12 more shot attempts. Jack Johnson led with four. He was also tied for the team lead in hits with three. And yet, he was the only defenseman to not be on the ice for any Penguins goals but on the ice for a Red Wings goal, and he was on the ice for two.

I think that's an example of why I don't agree with people who only want to rely on the "eye test." You're going to remember a big hit or big block of his because it stands out and is memorable, and Johnson had a few isolated moments like those in this game. But that doesn't tell you anything about a player's overall impact throughout the entire game, the little things that either lead to scoring chances for or preventing chances against. At five-on-five, Johnson was on the ice for eight attempts for and 15 against. That's not a product of his deployment -- 45.45% of the faceoffs he was on the ice for started in the offensive zone. That's less than half, but Justin Schultz, Letang, and Marino were each on the ice for a lower percentage of offensive zone faceoffs but had better results when it came to attempts taken and allowed.

• The Red Wings have now lost 11 straight games, and nine straight in regulation. This was the first time the Red Wings scored more than two goals in their last seven games.

"I think getting those late goals and finding a way to ultimately make it a tight game will be good for our confidence," Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said after the game. "It's big because we've had this stretch where we haven't been scoring at all.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore

• Video highlights

• NHL scoreboard

• NHL standings

THE INJURIES

• Nick Bjugstad last played on Nov. 15. He underwent core muscle surgery and will be out at least eight weeks.

• Sidney Crosby last played on Nov. 9. He underwent core muscle surgery and is expected to be out a minimum of six weeks.

• Brian Dumoulin last played on Nov. 30. He underwent ankle surgery to repair lacerated tendons on Dec. 1 and is expected to be out a minimum of eight weeks.

• Patric Hornqvist last played on Nov. 30. He sustained an lower-body injury in practice on Dec. 2. He's out "longer term."

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel — Evgeni Malkin — Bryan Rust

Dominik Kahun — Jared McCann — Brandon Tanev

Zach Aston-Reese — Teddy Blueger — Dominik Simon

Alex Galchenyuk — Sam Lafferty — Stefan Noesen

Kris Letang — John Marino

Jack Johnson — Justin Schultz

Marcus Pettersson — Chad Ruhwedel

And for Blashill‘s Red Wings:

Tyler Bertuzzi - Dylan Larkin - Robby Fabbri