VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The legal documents would lead you to believe that the hockey team in this town is operated by something called Canucks Sports and Entertainment, an entity headed by one Francesco Aquilini.
Not so.
A cursory check of NHL statistics is all that's needed to make it clear that it's actually Jake Guentzel who owns the Canucks.
Need proof?
Well, the three goals Guentzel scored in what became a 4-1 Penguins victory over Vancouver at Rogers Place Saturday night swelled his total in 10 career games against the Canucks to an even dozen. That is the most he has against any opponent -- including all of those Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference clubs that he faces more than twice a season -- and projects to 98 over an 82-game season.
Oh, and Guentzel also assisted on Sidney Crosby's goal in the third period, giving him seven of those against the Canucks in his career.
Twelve goals, seven assists in 10 games.
That is flat-out ownership, although Guentzel seemed to find it easier to score against Vancouver than to explain why he's able to do it so regularly.
"(Rogers Place) is just a fun building to play in," he said. "I think you get excited to come here and play."
Yeah. It shows.
Of course, Vancouver isn't the only opponent that's failed to neutralize Guentzel lately; he has points in 12 consecutive games, the longest such active streak in the league.
He is the Penguins' runaway scoring leader -- Guentzel has 24 points, 50 percent more than Evan Rodrigues, who is second -- and, with 13 goals, is the only Penguin with more than eight.
"The bounces are going my way right now," Guentzel said. "You go through stretches where you don't get these bounces. I'm just trying to shoot the puck as much as I can."
He's done that a team-leading 89 times this season, but that's only part of the reason he scores with such regularity.
"He's a really smart player, first of all," Kris Letang said. "He knows where to put himself on the ice. And for his size, he's a guy who goes into the tough areas, traffic. He's great in front of the net on our power play. He does everything really well. He's a pure goal-scorer. His shot is lethal, every time he has the puck in a good area."
And he's in those good areas a lot, because he has an exceptional feel for the game, for knowing where to locate an open patch of ice.
"He has a certain hockey IQ," Mike Sullivan said. "He has a unique ability to find the soft spots, and when he plays with a guy like Sid, he usually gets the puck, but he gets there at the right time. That's the genius of Jake's game."
The most noteworthy thing about Guentzel's fourth career hat trick might be that his second and third goals came when the Penguins had a two-man advantage.
They had failed to score a five-on-three goal in the previous 23 games in 2021-22, during which time they were up two men for a total of four minutes, 35 seconds, but Guentzel got a pair in 70 seconds.
The first broke a streak of seven failed tries in a row with two extra men, a slump that stretched back to last season.
"Hopefully, it give us some confidence and, hopefully, as a power-play group, we can kind of build off this," Guentzel said.
His goals came after Vancouver was assessed three minors in a space of 51 seconds during the second period, assuring the Penguins of an extended stretch with a two-man advantage.
Having so much time, Letang said, was a factor in the Penguins' ability to capitalize.
"We had a a lot of time on it and we could kind of read what they were doing as we were moving across on the ice," he said. "They play a triangle, with the two (defensemen) at the net, so we knew that the top of the ice, that's where we needed to make the plays, and we converted."
Having assessed how the Canucks were trying to survive being down two men, the Penguins made a point of moving the puck and bodies around to create and exploit openings in the penalty-killing unit.
"There was lots of motion," Sullivan said. "There were good decisions made, and there was execution. All the elements were there."
Guentzel, whose even-strength goal had come when he beat Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko from outside the right dot, got his second on a slap shot from above that dot and completed his hat trick with a wrist shot from above the left hash mark that glanced off Canucks defenseman Luke Schenn on the way to the net.
The Penguins, marooned at the bottom of the league's power play rankings not so long ago, have gotten at least one man-advantage goal in four of the past six games and have risen to 24th place, with a conversion rate of 15.3 percent.
"I thought (the power play was) really good all night long," Sullivan said. "They had a lot of good looks. They're starting to get rewarded for their efforts out there. ... They're starting to score goals."
Crosby all but ended the game at 11:15 of the third, when he drove to the net off the left-wing boards and steered in a feed from Letang to put the Penguins up, 4-1.
That goal seemed to exorcise whatever fight Vancouver still had in it, but the reality is that the Penguins had enjoyed an edge in play for much of the game, even before the two five-on-three goals.
"I thought we were playing well," Sullivan said. "We were on our toes, we controlled territory, we had a number of chances."
A few of them belonged to Guentzel, who easily could have finished the evening with five or six goals.
"I missed on two great chances there from Sid," Guentzel said. "I would like to bury those ones."
It didn't happen, so he had to settle for burying the Canucks. Again.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Sullivan reconfigured his bottom three lines before the game, and seemed reasonably satisfied with how the moves worked out. "I thought we generated a fair amount of scoring opportunities," he said. "Certainly, we had a lot of looks at the net. I thought we had a lot of shots on goal (44), and I thought every line had opportunities. I think that's progress."
• Before this game, the most goals Guentzel had against any opponent was 10 against New Jersey in 22 games.
• Vancouver has many issues, one of which is an underachieving power play. That unit features some quality personnel -- J.T. Miller, Bo Horvat and Elias Pettersson, among others -- but ranks just 20th in the league, with a conversion rate of 17.4 percent. The Canucks were 0-for-3 with the extra man against the Penguins, although they got their only goal on a Vasily Podkolzin deflection three seconds after their second man-advantage expired.
• The Penguins dominated the second period, as evidenced by their 22-5 advantage in shots then. "I thought we managed the puck pretty (well)," Letang said. "We put the puck deep and tried to grind them down, and we got some power plays out of it."
• John Marino and his defense partner, Marcus Pettersson, were the only Penguins skaters who failed to register a shot on goal.
• Drew O'Connor played in his first NHL game since Nov. 13, and said his adjustment from the wing to center is going well. "I'm definitely more comfortable than I was at the start," he said. "I think i can play a little more instinctively now. There are a few situations, maybe, where I'm thinking a bit, but I think that overall, I'm playing more instinctively."
• Guentzel's hat trick is the Penguins' first against the Canucks since Evgeni Malkin got one Jan. 23, 2016 and their first in Vancouver since Mario Lemieux's on Jan. 23, 1987. Pierre Larouche is the only other Penguins to get a hat trick here.
• Crosby and Letang each finished with three points.
• Miller drew the first two penalties assessed to the Penguins, but was assessed a pair of his own in the second period, the latter of which figured in on the Penguins' extended five-on-three power plays.
• Brian Dumoulin accounted for four of the Penguins' 15 blocked shots.
• Vancouver has retired the numbers of six players: Markus Naslund (19), Daniel Sedin (22), Henrik Sedin (33), Pavel Bure (10), Trevor Linden (16) and Stan Smyl (12). That's quite a few for a franchise that's never won a Stanley Cup since entering the NHL in 1970.
Sidney Crosby celebrates his third-period goal with Kris Letang.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Rogers Arena:
1. Jake Guentzel, Penguins
2. Sidney Crosby, Penguins
3. Kris Letang, Penguins
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• Evgeni Malkin is recovering from offseason knee surgery. He participated in an optional game-day skate Saturday and has been on the ice for the team's past five workouts.
• Bryan Rust has missed the past five games and is on injured-reserve because of an unspecified lower-body injury. He is listed as "week-to-week" and did not accompany the team on this four-game Western road trip.
• Brian Boyle did not play against the Canucks because of an unspecified upper-body injury and is listed as "day-to-day." He participated in the optional game-day skate.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Evan Rodrigues
Jason Zucker-Jeff Carter-Danton Heinen
Brock McGinn-Teddy Blueger-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Drew O'Connor-Dominik Simon
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
Mike Matheson-Chad Ruhwedel
And for Travis Green's Canucks:
Tanner Pearson-Bo Horvat-Connor Garland
Vasily Podkolzin-J.T, Miller-Brock Boeser
Justin Dowling-Elias Pettersson-Nils Hoglander
Tyler Motte-Jason Dickinson-Alex Chiasson
Oliver Ekman-Larsson-Tyler Myers
Quinn Hughes-Luke Schenn
Kyle Burroughs-Tucker Poolman
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to practice in Seattle Sunday at 4 p.m. Eastern before facing the Kraken Monday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
THE CONTENT
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