CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Alex Nylander said that the trade that brought him to the Penguins' organization from the Blackhawks' organization was "huge" for him.
Nylander, a 24-year-old winger, was coming off of a lost season at the time of the trade. He had the most successful season of his pro career to date in 2019-20, spending the entire year in the NHL with the Blackhawks, scoring 10 goals and 16 assists in 65 games. As he was preparing for the 2020-21 season, his knee started to feel "off" around August. He had already been training on it for three months, unaware that there was anything wrong with it.
After having his knee evaluated, he underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in December. It was a surgery that ended his season before it began.
He started the 2021-22 season with the Blackhawks' AHL affiliate in Rockford, and had moderate success with eight goals and four assists in 23 games before being acquired by the Penguins in a trade that sent Sam Lafferty to Chicago.
Nylander, who is listed at 6-foot-1, 192 pounds, excelled in Wilkes-Barre. He scored 14 goals and 16 assists in 44 games to finish the season, and scored three goals and three assists in six playoff games, including the overtime goal that eliminated the rival Hershey Bears in the first round of the playoffs.
"It was awesome," Nylander reflected on the trade when I spoke with him at training camp this week. "I came down and played in Wilkes, and it was great. They just let me play, play my game, and find my game, since after my injury I hadn't played for like a year. They just let me find the way I know how I can play. It was great. (head coach J.D. Forrest) and everybody there helped me a lot and just let me play and find my game, and obviously work hard every day. It was really nice to get my confidence back and know the way I can play."
It helped that Nylander found immediate chemistry with his center in Sam Poulin.
Poulin was moved from wing to center right around the time that Nylander was acquired, and the two just clicked. Poulin was coming off of his own struggles in the first half of the season, and they helped each other find their games. Both saw an increase in production in the second half of the season as a result.
I asked Nylander what it was about Poulin's game that had them fit together the way they did.
"I don't know," he said. "Sometimes you just get that luck, you click right away with some players. Me and Poulin had really good chemistry and I really liked playing with him last year."
Poulin thought things just came easy once they were put together.
"I think he's a pretty smart player," Poulin told me of Nylander. "One of his strengths is shooting the puck. So that's pretty simple, I was just giving him the puck and he was scoring. It wasn't too complicated."
It could be that a reason for the strong connection between the two is genetic.
Nylander's father Michael and Poulin's father Patrick both had long NHL careers themselves, and they started them together in Hartford. Patrick Poulin was the Whalers' first-round pick in 1991, and Michael Nylander was picked by Hartford two rounds later that same year. They both played their first NHL seasons in Hartford in 1992-93, and both were traded to separate teams the following year.
"We were talking about that, it's kind of crazy," Nylander said with a laugh. "Our dads played together, now we're playing together. It's kind of funny, his dad actually has a stick of mine."
"A couple of years back they probably had the same chemistry that we had," Poulin added. "It's pretty funny that we get to play together this year."
There's another Nylander family connection in Penguins' organization: Mike Sullivan.
Sullivan was teammates with Michael Nylander in Calgary from 1994-97, and then Sullivan was Michael Nylander's head coach in Boston in the 2003-04 season. After Alex got traded to the Penguins' organization last season, he got the lowdown on his potential future head coach from his dad.
"My dad actually said he loved having him as a coach," Nylander told me. "He has a really good way he wants us to play the game, and my dad loved it. My dad said it's really good to be here and have him as a coach because he knows how to win, and that's the way it should be. He's tough and a really good coach, it feels good."
Sullivan remembers Michael Nylander as "a terrific player, a really, really talented guy," and said that his kids Alex and William are following in that path.
"As my father always used to tell us, 'They don't grow up like the neighbors,'" Sullivan quipped. "Because his kids have good genes. (Michael) was a real good player, and a real nice guy. And so it just makes me feel old that now I'm coaching his kid."
Sullivan said that he's still trying to familiarize himself more with Nylander's game, given that this is their first training camp together. He likes the skill Nylander brings, they just want Nylander to bring some more speed and have a responsible two-way game.
"He's got real good offensive instincts," Sullivan told me. "We know he's a skilled player. We know he's got good offensive instincts. We're going to push him to play with more pace because we think he's capable there. And we'll see what his game looks like on both sides of the puck. But his first couple days, I think he's been pretty good."
Nylander said that his speed and his shot were his two biggest focuses over the summer. He's also well aware that he needs to continue to make that progress in his two-way game in order to get a shot in Pittsburgh this year.
"They want me to work harder, work hard without the puck," he said of the message from the coaching staff. "Be good in the battles and all that kind of stuff, be tough to play against. I worked on that and I feel I've gotten a lot better in that area, and I'm still improving and getting better every day here. And they want me to just keep doing what I can offensively. I know what I can do now, trying to make plays and score."
Nylander's had NHL success before. After a trade to the Penguins' organization reinvigorated his career following his injury, he's hopeful he can find that NHL success again here.
PENGUINS
MORE FROM CAMP
• The Penguins went from three practice groups to two, with Wilkes-Barre players and prospects working in the first session and the NHL guys working with the second group. Wilkes-Barre coaches Forrest, Kevin Porter and Sheldon Brookbank led that first practice, along with Ty Hennes and Trevor Daley, while the NHL coaches only worked with the second group. Sam Poulin, Alex Nylander, Valtteri Puustinen, Drew O'Connor, Filip Hallander, Drake Caggiula and Dustin Tokarski were notably among those skating with this first group. P.O Joseph, Ty Smith, Josh Archibald and Radim Zohorna were among the notable ones who stuck with the NHL group.
• Defense prospects Owen Pickering, Nolan Collins and Colin Swoyer, who were all injured either before or during camp, skated with the prospect group in regular contact jerseys. I asked Collins afterward if he was full contact, and he said he "basically" was, but didn't feel 100% comfortable when taking a hit yet. He said the initial hope was to be healthy soon enough that he could get into a preseason game, but he's not sure if that'll happen now with his junior season starting on Friday. I asked Sullivan if he expects Pickering to be able to get into a preseason game before he heads back to junior, and he said that he wasn't sure yet. It's encouraging that he didn't immediately rule it out, at least.
• AHL-contracted forward prospect Sam Houde skated with the first group in a non-contact jersey. It's unclear how he may have been injured, but I saw him after practice icing his left shoulder. He centered the Penguins' third line in the preseason game in Columbus on Sunday. He left the practice early, which may have just been planned given that he spent so much time skating on his own before practice.
• Forward prospect Jordan Frasca didn't skate. In case you missed it, I saw him in the press box on Tuesday on crutches and wearing a boot on his right foot. He centered the fourth line in that game in Columbus. If he was injured in that game it must have happened late, because he scored the Penguins' lone goal in that game midway through the third.
• Forward prospect Jonathan Gruden didn't practice. I did see him stickhandling on the floor on the other side of the glass during practice, wearing street clothes.
• The Penguins used these lines in the first practice of AHL players/prospects:
Drake Caggiula - Drew O'Connor - Valtteri Puustinen
Filip Hallander - Sam Poulin - Alex Nylander
Raivis Ansons - Kyle Olson - Nathan Legare
Jamie Devane/Ty Glover - Lukas Svejkovsky - Corey Andonovski
• Defensemen Pickering, Swoyer, Collins, Xavier Ouellet, Taylor Fedun, Jack St. Ivany, Josh Maniscalco, Jon Lizotte, Chris Ortiz rotated in that group.
• The NHL group of players used these lines and pairings in practice:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Brock McGinn - Ryan Poehling - Josh Archibald
Danton Heinen - Radim Zohorna worked as just a pair, with Mark Friedman/P.O Joseph taking a few reps as the other winger toward the end
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Jeff Petry
Ty Smith - Jan Rutta
P.O Joseph - Chad Ruhwedel/MarkFriedman
• Jeff Carter (upper-body, day-to-day) and Kasperi Kapanen (illness) did not practice, though Sullivan said Carter is making progress. Teddy Blueger was on the ice for the start of practice but left before line rushes and did not return. Sullivan said he is currently being evaluated for an upper-body injury.
• While one of the groups is obviously a depth group and one is obviously an NHL group, Sullivan said that the way these players are divided now might not stick. Just because a player was in the AHL group today doesn't mean they aren't making the team.
"Obviously, the afternoon group was the semblance of the Pittsburgh Penguins," he said. "There might be some movement in between the groups with some people, depending on performance and exhibition games. For example, (Radim Zohorna) was part of the group today, we thought he's played really well to this point in some of the exhibition games and that's why that decision was made. Obviously, it's hard to put all these guys on the ice at once and run functional practices. So we're trying to do it in an organized fashion so that we have the right types of numbers on the ice so we can run functional practices. So we've got to make a dividing line somewhere at this point and that's where we're at."
• Sullivan likes what he's seen from newcomer Ryan Poehling so far too.
"He's got a steady two-way game, he's positionally pretty sound," Sullivan said. "He's been decent on the face offs. I think he's got a good defensive conscience. We're still trying to learn his game with each day that we get a chance to work with him. But that's what I've noticed at this point."
• Valtteri Puustinen spoke about what it was like getting to skate alongside Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel in the first few days of training camp:
I think Puustinen's favorite English word is "awesome." Everything is "awesome." It's great.
• Poulin said that he thinks this camp is his "best in my three years here. I'm pretty happy about the way I play and how things are going."
Asked how close he thinks he is to the NHL, he said that he thinks he's pretty close.
"I think I could play this year," he said. "But you never know what can happen. Sometimes it seems like it's pretty healthy, so there's not so many spots available."
Given the way the Penguins' injury luck is currently going, "pretty healthy" feels like a pipe dream. There will be a spot for Poulin at some point.
