If you were watching hockey for the first time when the Penguins came back from a four-goal deficit to beat the Blue Jackets, 5-4, in overtime Tuesday here at PPG Paints Arena, I guarantee you never would've suspected Alex Nylander was playing in his first NHL game in nearly three years.
Said another way, it shouldn't have taken nearly this long for him to make his way into the lineup.
Alas, the absence of both Bryan Rust (personal reasons) and Mikael Granlund (illness) forced the Penguins to recall Nylander from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the AHL on an emergency basis in order to have enough skaters against the Blue Jackets.
Nylander, who turned 25 on March 2, was acquired from the Blackhawks on Jan. 5, 2022 in exchange for Sam Lafferty. Since then, the former eighth overall pick in the 2016 draft has played 98 games as a member of the Penguins' organization, but all of them were down in the AHL, where he recorded a combined 39 goals and 41 assists.
"I found out in the morning when I went to practice, right after our team meeting," Nylander said of being recalled. "I was really happy, really excited. Didn’t know for sure if I was getting called up, but (I was) so excited when they said I was coming. Took my car here, so five hours, and then just got ready for the game."
Now, I don't think anyone would've batted an eye if he turned in a rather pedestrian performance considering the circumstances. But his performance wasn't even in the same stratosphere as pedestrian. He legitimately played an excellent game and, without question, played a part in the Penguins ultimately emerging victorious.
Nylander started the game playing on the right wing of the third line with Jeff Carter and Drew O'Connor. The Penguins falling behind early likely had something to do with it, but he earned himself a promotion to the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Jason Zucker.
Eventually, his promotion proved to be fruitful, as he picked up the secondary assist on Zucker's first of two goals on the night midway through the second period:
It's not just that he picked up the secondary assist, it's the manner in which he did so.
Immediately after a faceoff loss, Nylander jumped up to forecheck and apply pressure on Erik Gudbranson below the goal line. The pressure itself wasn't anything crazy, but it was effective. Gudbranson was forced to rim the puck along the wall as he was knocked off balance and, as a result, the puck slowly made its way toward the intended target, only to be denied by a pinch from Marcus Pettersson.
Pettersson dished the puck down low to Nylander, who then baited Gudbranson out of position and to the perimeter before slipping a backhand pass right back where he came from. Malkin pounced on it, fed Zucker, and that was that.
Quite the display of poise, huh?
Despite that being his only point, it wasn't the only instance in which he directly impacted the Penguins Zucker finding the back of the net.
Several minutes into the third period, Nylander once again forced a suboptimal Blue Jackets pass with his forechecking pressure. That pressure was the difference between a smooth pass along the ice and a fluttering hope and prayer:
Just like the previous clip, Malkin then pounced on the puck, found Zucker out front, and that was that.
Nylander finished the game with 14:55 of ice time, most of which came during 5-on-5 action. During that time, he attempted five shots (two of which were on goal), threw three hits and had two takeaways.
Perhaps more impressive is how utterly dominant the Penguins were with him on the ice at 5-on-5:
• 2 goals
• 0 goals against
• 28 shot attempts
• 9 attempts against
• 79.2% share of expected goals
And just for good measure, Nylander was on the ice for a team-high 10 high-danger chances at full-strength. Considering what the Penguins have gotten out of depth and role players for large chunks of this season, that's a massive win.
"I think I played a good game for my first game in the NHL in — I think it was like three years ago," Nylander said. "I think we had a lot of good shifts out there. Obviously we had a slow start there, but we came back and that was an amazing win. It was a lot of fun."
To get a little more insight into Nylander's impact that wouldn't be publicly available anywhere else, I manually tracked each of his defensive-zone exits and offensive-zone entries at 5-on-5. He was essentially flawless in transition.
He attempted four defensive-zone exits, all of which succeeded and were with possession of the puck. At the offensive blue line, he attempted eight entries, all of which succeeded. Three of them were with possession.
He did not fail at either blue line once.
And the thing about those five offensive-zone entries that weren't with possession is that he wasn't mindlessly blasting the puck deep in the zone. There was purpose and intent behind where those pucks were placed and, in my eyes, it further enforced that his vision and puck management are NHL-caliber.
Two of the biggest knocks on Nylander's game, even as recently as training camp, are that he doesn't always play with enough pace and that his defensive work can be shoddy. Coming from the resident analytics guy: I'm doing my absolute best not to let a 15-minute sample completely warp my perception of the kind of player he can become, but I didn't find either of those items to be issues Tuesday.
Late in the first period, he had an excellent backcheck to the backdoor to impede a potentially easy tap-in for the Blue Jackets:
The effort there is superb. What I love most about the play is that he hopped over the boards for his shift and immediately scanned for his assignment. If he'd done so any later, he might've gotten burned. It's not all that uncommon for skaters to be a bit lost in the sauce in the moments after the beginning of an on-the-fly shift, so he deserves some props for his awareness, as well.
There were also several instances in which he took fantastic routes in the neutral zone to seal the puck carrier off along the boards, forcing them to relinquish possession rather than carry the puck into the Penguins' end.
I suppose there might be something to be said for injecting some youthful energy into this lineup, after all:
After the game, I asked Mike Sullivan if he was pleased with Nylander's pace and defensive work, regardless of what he brought to the table offensively.
"Yeah, I thought he played a solid game," Sullivan said. "One of the reasons we moved him up the lineup the way we did is because we liked what we saw, and we thought we’d give him a shot with Geno’s line. I thought he played real well. He’s come a long way. I had a great conversation with J.D. (Forrest), our Wilkes-Barre coach, and they’ve done a real good job working with Alex, and Alex deserves a lot of credit for the growth and development of his game. You could see his playmaking ability and his offensive instincts. He’s a talented player."
The key, though, came at the tail end of his response.
"I think he’s starting to round out his game on both sides of the puck."
If the perceived shortcomings of Nylander's game have improved to the point where they won't be exposed and exploited at the NHL level, I'm struggling to see how he's not an immediate upgrade over a handful of lineup regulars. When Rust and Granlund are back, the Penguins can change Nylander's recall to a standard recall and keep him in the NHL, so long as Ryan Poehling remains on long-term injured reserve.
Again, I'm doing my best not to overreact to a lone performance here and will admit I'd like to see him in a handful of games before making any concrete decisions, but if the player who showed up Tuesday night continues to show up in that fashion, he shouldn't see the AHL again this season.
"Just been working hard every day and just try and play my game," Nylander said. "I just knew my time would come. Wasn’t really stressing too much about it, and I just knew if I keep playing like this, eventually it will come. Just really happy, really excited that it came today, and it was awesome."
At 25, he's hardly a prospect anymore. In reality, the player he is right now might be close to the best he'll ever get. It's high time for the Penguins to figure out what they really have in him.
