Gruden confident, 'made good decisions' in debut

Jonathan Gruden said he "blacked out for a minute."

It was the start of warmups, and his new teammates stood off to the side of the tunnel, clearing the way for him to get to the front of the line and take the solo lap around the ice that is customary for all players making their NHL debuts.

"Welcome to the NHL, John Gruden!"

"I don't really remember it," Gruden said with a grin when I asked him about that moment following the Penguins' 4-3 overtime win over the Ducks. "But it's really exciting. I was pretty nervous about it. It's nice to get it out of the way."

Two and a half years after being acquired by the Penguins in the Matt Murray trade, the 22-year-old Gruden has made it to the NHL. He had a pretty good game in his debut, and left his coach wishing he could have seen a little more of it.

Gruden had a relatively quiet debut -- 7:02 of ice time centering the Penguins' fourth line, no points, two hits and a takeaway. He went 1-for-5 in faceoffs.

He came pretty close to scoring on just his second shift in the first period, though, when his shot from the slot got deflected and rang off the post:

"I just tried to get it on net, I don't even know what happened but it bounced off the post," Gruden said with a little laugh. "That was a close one."

Gruden's 11 goals in 32 AHL games this season are a career-high for him, surpassing last season's totals of 10 goals in 75 games. A pretty big chunk of those goals this season have come in his last three games, scoring five goals and an assist in that stretch.

Scoring goals isn't Gruden's primary job. His strengths  -- and what earned him this opportunity in the NHL -- are his defensive play and his penalty-killing abilities. He's the best forward Wilkes-Barre has in either regard.

If Wilkes-Barre needs to protect a lead late in a game, it's Gruden that head coach J.D. Forrest sends onto the ice first and foremost. That's actually how he scored a lot of his goals last season -- four of the 10 were empty-netters. It's not that he's more adept than others at hitting the empty cage, he's just the player most frequently turned to in those tight late-game situations.

If you're looking for a player comparison, he's closest to Teddy Blueger, perhaps with more of an edge. He's a little more physical (even though he's not overly big at 6 feet, 190 pounds), and he doesn't shy away from stepping up to protect his teammates. He has seven fights in his 139 career AHL games, including one just earlier this month after he didn't like the way an opponent was treating his goaltender.

Gruden showed brief flashes of his strong two-way play in this game, like with these two consecutive hits in the Penguins' end in the second period:

Gruden forced a turnover in the Penguins' end in his next shift and got the puck out of the zone:

Gruden's not averse to going to the dirty areas too like the net-front, and he did that in this game:

Gruden's 7:02 of ice time was a team-low, but that's less an indication of his play and more so a result of the flow of the game. There were eight penalties called in this game, and Gruden wasn't out there for any special teams time. Even though penalty-killing is one of his strengths, it just wouldn't make sense to throw him out there on a unit in his debut. He was recalled only on Sunday, and didn't have the opportunity to have a full practice with the team yet. Especially given how crucial reading off of teammates is to finding success on the penalty kill, Gruden would need some more time to get familiar before he gets in on the penalty-kill.

"Grudes played well," Mike Sullivan said of Gruden's debut. "He was making good decisions. I thought he played with confidence. I would have liked to have gotten him a little bit more ice time. The way the way the game evolved with the special teams didn't give me the opportunity to use the bench the way I intended going in, the way I wanted to."

Gruden's line with Brock McGinn and Kasperi Kapanen was deployed in a more defensive role, getting only one shift that began in the offensive zone. Despite those responsibilities, they were on the ice for an equal number of shot attempts for and against (seven), same as with shots on goal (four).

"I thought his line for the most part all night long was good," Sullivan said. "They had some opportunities, they had some zone time."

Overall, Gruden said that his game had "some good, some bad."

"There's a lot to learn from," he said. "A huge two points, so that's the big thing about today."

I asked Gruden what he thought some of those areas in which he needed improvement were.

"Just getting my feet under me, better puck decisions, slow the game down," he rattled off.

"I think if I get in another game, I can keep going."