Why Penguins made decision to recall Zohorna, re-assign Puustinen

CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The Penguins' decision to send Valtteri Puustinen back down to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday and recall Radim Zohorna was initially a bit of a surprise.

Puustinen had just made his NHL debut the night before against the Golden Knights, and fared well on the right wing of the Penguins' third line, alongside Jeff Carter and Brock McGinn. He picked up his first NHL point when he sprung McGinn on the breakaway that led to Carter's goal. He skated on the second power play unit, and his shot and acumen for getting to the net stood out when the Penguins were on the man advantage.

"He reads the game really well," Carter said after that game of Puustinen. "I was very impressed with him tonight. I thought he had a really good game. It's not easy to come in your first NHL game, nerves and whatnot. But I thought he played a heck of a game for us."

McGinn's apparent wrist injury at the end of the second period, which has him sidelined on a week-to-week basis, complicated things.

McGinn is a left-handed shot, and played on the left wing of that third line. Puustinen is a right-handed shot. While Puustinen has some experience playing on his off side in Finland, he has played exclusively right wing in Wilkes-Barre this season. Playing him on his off side wouldn't be the most advantageous situation for him as he settles in to the NHL. Kasperi Kapanen, who sat out the game against the Golden Knights as a healthy scratch, is a right-handed shot. With the way he's struggled this season, playing him on his off side wouldn't be the best circumstance for him either as he tries to find his game.

If the Penguins didn't want to put either Kapanen or Puustinen on their off side, that left them with a couple of options. They could have broken up one of the other combinations and done something like shifting Evan Rodrigues from the right to the left (something he's done before, but wouldn't be ideal given that he's also been cold offensively as of late), or a left wing could get back into the lineup -- either by recall, or putting Dominik Simon back in -- and then taking Puustinen back out or sitting Kapanen again.

The Penguins opted to recall the left-handed Zohorna and send Puustinen down, giving Kapanen another shot to find his game and giving them balance in terms of handedness on that line for Sunday's game against the Hurricanes.

Handedness wasn't the only factor that went into the decision, though.

"A lot of discussion went into that decision," Mike Sullivan explained after Monday's practice at the Lemieux Complex. "Some of it had to do with our opponent. We felt like size, a little bit of mobility and just a little bit of maturity was an important element. Part of it was the way the line combinations were going to play out, and what we thought was a better look for us as far as balance and being hard to play against."

Zohorna, at 6-foot-6 and 220 pounds, brings more size than the 5-foot-9, 183-pound Puustinen. And being in his second season in North America, he brings that maturity element too. He's recorded a goal and an assist in his nine games with Pittsburgh this season, and seven goals and eight assists in his 31 games in Wilkes-Barre.

"Z has played extremely well," Sullivan said of Zohorna. "He's a little bit more mature player, he's a little bit older. We felt that was more beneficial for us against Carolina. That was part of the reason why we made that decision."

The major knock on Zohorna's game back in training camp was his conditioning. Some of it was through no fault of his own. Zohorna told me early in the season that he was dealing with an unknown illness for about a month that zapped his conditioning.

"I need to work on my conditioning, because I think I lost it when I was sick," he told me in late October. "I need to do more condition work with (Wilkes-Barre strength coach Mike Joyce), and I hope I will play good for the team."

Several months into the season, it seems like Zohorna's conditioning still isn't quite where they want it to be. It's a real adjustment for him when he does go down to Wilkes-Barre and jumps into a top-line role with big minutes.

"A lot of times here he plays more minutes than he does up there," Wilkes-Barre head coach J.D. Forrest told me back in February. "So it's managing his shift length and his energy out there. He definitely plays well at either level. So when he comes down, there's no real drop in this game. I think it's just getting used to the ice time."

Zohorna told me after Monday's practice that he "feels great." But he still thinks he has room to go to get his conditioning level up to where it was before he got sick to start the year.

Sullivan said that he thinks Zohorna's conditioning level is "improved, but it's certainly an area where we're continuing to try to help Z in that regard."

"He's a good player, he has good offensive instincts," Sullivan said of Zohorna. "He's a big, strong guy. He has the ability to play with pace. That's something that I think he's really developed over the last season and a half since he's been a Pittsburgh Penguin. We're trying to help him just to be able to sustain that pace, shift in and shift out. That's something that we're working with Z with, but he's working extremely hard. I think he's getting better at it. But I just think it's a process."

Other than Zohorna, the other logical recall option in Wilkes-Barre as far as left-handed wingers go is Drew O'Connor.

O'Connor was sidelined for over a month with a reported collapsed lung. When he recovered and was sent to Wilkes-Barre near the end of February, Forrest said after O'Connor's first two games that he wasn't quite fully in "game-shape" or "back to normal" yet, and that one of the main concerns was O'Connor working to get his timing back after so much time off. 

O'Connor's been in Wilkes-Barre for 10 games now since the re-assignment, and he's scored five goals and seven assists in that time. 

Sullivan said Monday that O'Connor is now "back to 100 percent," and "playing extremely well down there."

"Drew's a real good player," Sullivan said. "We're really excited about Drew's game. He's an NHL player. The size that he brings, he's got a power game to his game. He can really skate, he's shown the ability to finish, he has some touch with the puck. With more and more experience, he's only going to get better. So we're really excited about potentially where Drew's game could go."

One big reason why O'Connor didn't get the call, though, is that the Penguins want O'Connor to use this time to work on penalty-killing in Wilkes-Barre. O'Connor's been one of the regular penalty-killing forwards since he was sent down, and is just getting shorthanded minutes at that level that he wouldn't be getting at the NHL level. Staying in Wilkes-Barre allows him to grow that side of his game and get more comfortable, and be able to contribute more to the NHL roster whenever he does come back up.

"Especially if you're playing in the bottom-six role on our team, to have the ability to participate on one of the special teams gives us the chance to manage minutes better with respect to the rest of the group that we have, so that we can sustain a high level of play and we don't overplay certain guys in certain situations," Sullivan said. "So I know he's working at (killing penalties) in Wilkes. And I know when he was up here, he worked with Mike Vellucci, spent a lot of time with him on the film, and also just getting reps in practice. He's had a few opportunities in games to help us on the penalty kill, but that's something that I think he could potentially be really good at, because of his mobility, his size, his reach, and his instincts."

While Zohorna is the one up in the NHL now, and O'Connor is someone with whom they see a lot of potential at for the future, that doesn't mean that we won't see Puustinen again in the NHL at some point. They're still high on his game.

"He had a real solid game for us in the game that he played," Sullivan said. "We're really excited about where his game is going to go moving forward. He has great offensive instincts. He's a great kid, he loves to play. His energy is really contagious."

The coaching staff likes the Penguins' young players. There's just a lot more that goes into who gets an opportunity and when than people realize.

MORE FROM PRACTICE

• The Penguins used the same lines and pairings as they did in Sunday's game against the Hurricanes:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evgeni Malkin - Evan Rodrigues
Radim Zohorna - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
Brian Boyle - Teddy Blueger - Zach Aston-Reese

Mike Matheson - Kris Letang
Brian Dumoulin - John Marino
Mark Friedman - Chad Ruhwedel

• Marcus Pettersson and Simon skated as an extra defense pairing for much of the five-on-five work, though toward the end Pettersson rotated in on the third pairing with both Mark Friedman and Chad Ruhwedel. It still seems like Pettersson will be the odd man out next game, though.

• The power play units also remained the same as Sunday's game. The top unit was Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, and Jake Guentzel. The second unit was Mike Matheson, Danton Heinen, Kapanen, Rodrigues and Carter.

• The Penguins began practice with a drill working on breaking out of their own zone after a defensive-zone faceoff, then getting shots off the rush in the opponents' end. Sullivan spoke after Sunday's game about not being satisfied with the way the Penguins were breaking out of their own end in that game, so it was unsurprising to see it be the way they opened practice.

• Todd Reirden, recovering from last month's knee surgery, isn't back on skates yet. He's still able to run drills from the bench though.

• Matheson was one of several players (a group that also included Tristan Jarry, Crosby, Letang and Blueger) who attended Saturday's U.S.-Canada women's game at PPG Paints Arena. Matheson's wife Emily is normally a defender for the U.S. team but has taken time off for the birth of their son Hudson, and so she served as one of the coaches in the game. When Matheson spoke last week prior to the game, he said he was looking forward to the "role reversal," saying that he'll "be there with Hudson and dealing with him through the game, and she’ll be performing.”

Matheson caught a bit of flack from his wife after that phrasing.

"First off, my wife said 'I can't believe you said you had to deal with him' the last time I talked about it," Matheson said with a laugh. "It was a privilege to be with him, I should say. It was a lot of fun. I mean, just to be able to be with him and experience what that's like for my wife every time she brings him to our games is a lot of fun, to be with my teammates and kind of expose him to them and take care of him."

I did see Matheson at that game, pushing Hudson around in a stroller outside the locker rooms, proudly showing him off. Other than his dad duties, Matheson thought the game itself was a cool event.

"I thought it was great, the amount of people that came out to support them," he said. "The game was good. It's always such a tight game between the two of them and they obviously didn't disappoint. So it's great."

• Zohorna disclosed the team's game plan for the upcoming road trip to Nashville, St. Louis, and Arizona: "We want to try to win every game. Hopefully we can win all three games."

• Zohorna on being on Carter's wing: "Every game I play with him, it's like a superstar. He's old and he's looking like he's playing amazing. I want to do my best for him, and I hope he's good with me."

• Speaking of old guys ... Jaromir Jagr. "He's an amazing person," Zohorna said of Jagr. "He's still playing at 50 years old. He's an idol for everyone my age and younger. He's an amazing player and an amazing person for charity."

• Hilarious content here from the Penguins, made before P.O Joseph got sent back to Wilkes-Barre: