Bjorkqvist 'super-appreciative' after scoring in long-awaited NHL debut

Kasper Bjorkqvist waited a long time for this day.

Bjorkqvist, the Penguins' 2016 second-round pick, had a lot of "obstacles," as he put it last week, since turning pro.

In his rookie 2019-20 season in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, his season ended after six games after tearing his ACL in a collision with a teammate in practice. Due to the AHL's late start last year over the effects of COVID-19, the Penguins kept Bjorkqvist in the Finnish league for the majority of the year in an effort to get him the most playing time possible. He played 17 games in Wilkes-Barre this season amidst some other "obstacles," including a laceration from a skate blade and a bout of COVID while recovering from the laceration, ailments that kept him sidelined for a full month.

With Bjorkqvist finally healthy, and with the Penguins having their own rash of injuries and players in COVID protocol, an opportunity finally presented itself for Bjorkqvist to make his NHL debut in Sunday's game against the Sharks at PPG Paints Arena.

Bjorkqvist ran onto the ice to lead the team out for warmups, not wanting to wait a moment longer than the 5 1/2 years he's already waited for this day since the Penguins drafted him:

He then scored a goal and had an otherwise strong debut in the Penguins' 8-5 win.

Before the game, though, Bjorkqvist met with someone in the organization who was instrumental in getting him to this point: Dr. Dharmesh Vyas, the team physician.

"I'm super-appreciative of everything, everyone who's helped," Bjorkqvist said, "It's a dream as a kid to play in the NHL. Now I had the opportunity, I'm very appreciative of what he did for me to get my knee back, and stuff like that. Just very appreciative of everyone who's helped me so far."

Bjorkqvist skated on the left side of the Penguins' fourth line, alongside Radim Zohorna and Sam Lafferty. The line skated together for 7:45 of five-on-five ice time, and was the Penguins' most effective line in terms of shot attempts for vs. allowed, with the Penguins attempting seven shots when that line was on the ice and only allowing one attempt, an attempt that didn't even reach the net.

One of those attempts for came when Bjorkqvist drove to the net late in the first period, finishing a feed from Zohorna:

When I asked Mike Sullivan about Bjorkqvist's game during training camp, the one area he pointed to as an area that needed improvement was Bjorkqvist's pace. And today, that was one of the areas of Bjorkqvist's game that Sullivan pointed to as an area that's improved.

"I think Kasper this year for me has a noticeable difference in his pace, not only his foot speed, but his ability to think the game and see the game, his awareness skills," Sullivan said.

Overall, Sullivan said that he "really likes" where Bjorkqvist's game is at.

"He's good on the wall," Sullivan said. "He has good size (6-1, 198). He has good strength. He's strong on the puck. He's willing to block shots. He's a good penalty-killer."

Bjorkqvist got 36 seconds of penalty-kill time on the Penguins' first penalty kill of the game, and the Sharks didn't record any shots or shot attempts during that span.

Mike Matheson, the Penguins' last recipient of the team postgame MVP helmet, chose Bjorkqvist as the recipient, breaking a three-game run of defensemen getting the helmet:

Bjorkqvist's endeared himself to his teammates with his style of play and his work ethic.

"He plays a heavy game," Evan Rodrigues said. "He's responsible defensively. And I think like you saw today, he goes to the hard areas, and he got rewarded for it. I thought that line as a whole played really well for us. I think that the whole team was was really happy for him."

"He's a big, strong kid," Bryan Rust said of Bjorkqvist. "He works really hard. He's also had some unfortunate injuries over his career, and to see him just work through that and get an opportunity here tonight and score goal for us is awesome."

In Bjorkqvist's intermission interview with Dan Potash, he said that he was just looking to "bring some positivity" to the locker room by being his happy, excited self at the rink. He's succeeding there, too.

"He always has a smile on his face," Rust said. "So it's fun having him around. He's a great guy, I hope he continues to play well."

Moving forward, Bjorkqvist said that he'll look to make the "small right decisions every day" in hopes to carve out a real role for himself at this level. And he'll keep bringing his positive attitude to the rink too, just happy to be healthy and playing hockey again.

"I'm very excited about just being a hockey player and having the ability to play and come to the rink and do stuff like that," he said. "So just try to get better every day and focus on what I can do to be as good as possible."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• The Penguins' winning streak is now at eight games. They're 3-0 in the Snoop Dogg third jerseys.

• Jake Guentzel extended his point streak to 14 straight games with his first-period goal:

• Rodrigues recorded his first career hat trick with the first, third, and seventh goals of the game:

"Maybe they'll go to charity or something," Rodrigues said of the hats. "Maybe I'll put in a word and get them somewhere."

• Rust recorded his fifth career hat trick, with the fourth, sixth, and eighth (empty net) goals of the game:

"I was hoping I'd be able to come right in and make an impact," Rust said. "And I was happy that I did."

With assists on the goals from Guentzel and Rodrigues' third goal, it was a five-point night for Rust, the first of his career.

• Despite Rodrigues' hat trick coming first, there were still a fair amount of hats thrown onto the ice for Rust's third goal.

"First of all, I was shocked that there were any (hats) left," Rust said. "I don't know what those people were doing saving them."

Rodrigues had his own theory about the hats that were left for Rust's hat trick.

"Sometimes when they're thrown from way up top, they don't really reach the ice," he said. "So maybe someone got lucky and got to throw someone else's hat."

"Oh my God, I haven't seen this in awhile," Sidney Crosby said when Rust finished his hat trick. "Soak it up."

• It's definitely been awhile. This is the first time that two Penguins players have scored hat tricks in the same game since Petr Sykora and Pascal Dupuis did it on Dec. 11, 2008. Like Rust and Rodrigues, Sykora and Dupuis wear No. 17 and No. 9. 

• Another wild stat: Bjorkqvist is the sixth current Penguins player to score in his NHL debut, joining Brian Boyle, Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin, Brock McGinn and Radim Zohorna.

• Bjorkqvist is the 17th Finnish player to play a game for the Penguins. He's already outscored Janne Pesonen and Petteri Lehto combined, and put together a decidedly better performance than Antti Niemi as well.

• This was the first time the Penguins scored six goals in the first period since Feb. 21, 1976 against the Black Hawks. Unlike this game, the Penguins didn't let their opponent make things interesting as the game went on, and held on for a 10-1 win.

• The Sharks pulled James Reimer after the first period and put backup Zach Sawchenko in net. The Sharks' usual starter, Adin Hill, is in the AHL on a conditioning assignment after a bout with COVID. This was Sawchenko's NHL debut. He's a third-year pro, and split the last two seasons between the AHL and ECHL. He finished the game with 20 saves on 21 shots. Nice move by the Penguins to name him as the third star in this game.

• The Sharks showed some life after the first period. Brent Burns' power play tally was the lone second-period goal, and then three goals from the Sharks in the first 4:09 of the third period cut the Penguins' lead to 6-5. 

"There were definitely some spurts in the game where we kind of let our foot off the gas or we didn't quite play the right way," Rust said. "You gotta give them credit. They're a heck of a team. And they battled hard. And they made some really good plays and scored some goals."

• Not all of the Sharks' goals can be put on Casey DeSmith, but 22 saves on 27 shots isn't great. Other than his two games in Anaheim and Seattle earlier last month, he's been underwhelming this season. I'd like to see Louis Domingue get a shot here soon, he's the third goaltender now with Tristan Jarry still on the COVID list. Domingue has pretty average numbers in the NHL over the last seven seasons, posting a career 58-59-10 record, 3.05 goals-against average, and .904 save percentage. 

• Zach Aston-Reese led in hits with nine, and tied Rodrigues for the most shots on goal with six.

• This was Marcus Pettersson's 200th game as a Penguin.

• Rodrigues has been bringing the postgame stat sheet to his media availabilities the last couple of games. He checks it during the press conferences and everything, it's funny. Last game he said he was just getting his daily reading in. 

• Brian Boyle was away from the team in Saturday's practice and Sunday's game after the birth of his third child, Callum:

• The Penguins sold 18,066 tickets for this game, just 121 short of a sellout.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Evan Rodrigues, Penguins
2. Bryan Rust, Penguins
3. Zach Sawchenko, Sharks

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES, ILLNESSES

• Forward Evgeni Malkin is still recovering from his offseason knee surgery. He expects to play on the Penguins upcoming western road trip.

• Forward Jason Zucker is dealing with an undisclosed lower-body injury and is out week-to-week. He was put on injured reserve retroactive to Dec. 19.

• Forward Teddy Blueger was activated from COVID protocol and skated on his own on Sunday.

• Goaltender Tristan Jarry was added to COVID protocol Dec. 27. Sullivan said he's experienced mild symptoms.

• Defenseman P.O Joseph was added to the COVID protocol Dec. 28.

• Forward Kasperi Kapanen was added to the COVID protocol Dec. 29.

• Forward Jeff Carter was added to the COVID protocol Jan. 1.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evan Rodrigues - Dominik Simon
Zach Aston-Reese - Drew O'Connor - Brock McGinn
Kasper Bjorkqvist - Radim Zohorna - Sam Lafferty

Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino
Mike Matheson - Chad Ruhwedel

And for Bob Boughner's Sharks:

Timo Meier - Logan Couture - Alex Barbanov
Noah Gregor - Tomas Hertl - Jonathan Dahlen
Andrew Cogliano - Nick Bonino - Matthew Nieto
Jonah Gadjovich - Lane Pederson - Jeffrey Viel

Radim Simek - Brent Burns
Jacob Middleton - Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Nicholas Meloche

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins have a scheduled day off on Monday. They'll practice in Cranberry on Tuesday at 11 a.m. in preparation for Wednesday's 7:30 game at home against the Blues.

THE CONTENT

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