If there's any player who could be considered "snakebitten" this season, it's Teddy Blueger.
Blueger hasn't been bad as of late offensively. He's been generating chances, he just wasn't able to find the back of the net. Coming into Sunday's game against the Lightning at PPG Paints Arena, he had just one goal on the season -- way back on Dec. 6 against the Blue Jackets, a goal that was essentially an empty-netter, though the opposing goaltender had only just started to race to the bench.
In recent weeks had a goal disallowed, breakaway chances denied, tips and other high-danger chances stopped. He couldn't buy a goal.
Blueger finally snapped his 32-game goalless drought in Sunday's 7-3 win over the Lightning when he beat Brian Elliott in the second period with a goal that stood to be the game-winner, and he's hoping it's the start of more production from his line moving forward.
Blueger is shooting more than he ever has in his entire career this season. He's averaging 7.23 shots on goal per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time, the best rate of his career by nearly half of a shot. His rate of 3.89 high-danger attempts per 60 minutes is also the highest of his career -- he's going to the scoring areas. Those chances haven't been going in, but they've at times resulted in scoring chances for others. He's creating an average of .97 rebound opportunities per 60 minutes, nearly a 40% increase from his previous career-high last season.
It's his shooting percentage that's suffered, obviously. He's shooting at just 1.92% at five-on-five. For context, his previous career-low shooting percentage was 8.75%, set last season.
Mike Sullivan was speaking about dealing with the confidence of players like Blueger, and he said that "the good thing is that you can get it back as quickly as you can lose it."
"It starts with a good play or a nice play, and you can build," Sullivan added. "I think the more important thing is not to be overly critical of your own personal game, but to be observant of your individual game. Those are the conversations that we have with our players."
A "good play" like having the awareness to drive to the net and knock in a loose puck?
Blueger admitted to feeling a little relief after the game at getting the reward of the goal. But he's been following Sullivan's advice of not being "overly critical" of his own game despite the goal drought. He knows he's been generating offense,
"We've been playing pretty well, getting chances," Blueger said. "It's just a matter of capitalizing. Sometimes with how it goes you have to fight through it. It's obviously a good feeling to score at any time, but especially when you haven't done it for awhile."
I asked Blueger what it was like mentally during that time when it seemed like just nothing was going his way.
"Yeah, it's not a great feeling," he said. "You try to block it out as much as you can and just focus on the process and playing. I think the good thing is that the last couple of weeks I've been getting chances. There's a couple I'd like to have back that I'm not sure how I missed. Sometimes that's how it goes. You just have to focus on working and putting in the work. You can't get confidence from the results, because they're not coming. You just try to keep the confidence up through the work."
We've seen players go through stretches like this before, where they seemingly can't buy a goal, then once they finally do get one, it erases their bad luck. It goes back to what Sullivan was saying pregame about confidence, and "the good thing is that you can get it back as quickly as you can lose it."
Blueger's goal Sunday should serve as a confidence-builder for him, and if that can spur a better finishing rate for him moving forward, it would be a big step forward for getting the Penguins' bottom six in shape for this second half of the season.
