Kovacevic: Don't dare bump Rakell off the first-team power play

The reigning Norris Trophy winner, author of 101 points and future Hall of Famer will man one of the points on the Penguins' first power-play unit this winter.

Barring a Mike Sullivan lobotomy, of course.

And yet, Erik Karlsson's inclusion might be just about the only easy call the coaches will have in this category, especially as compared to identifying an odd man out from a predicted six-player pool of Karlsson, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel and Rickard Rakell. Because, while I'm feeling like Sid and Geno are kinda good here ... and I'm feeling Letang will stay if there are two defensemen at the points and Geno slides forward ... that'll still leave a choice between Guentzel, the team's perennial top goal-scorer, and Rakell, who also spent most of the second half of the 2022-23 NHL season on the first unit.

Now, in the very early going, there won't be a choice at all, as Guentzel's expected by Kyle Dubas to miss the first few games while recovering from recent ankle surgery. But once Guentzel's ready ...

Yeah, no. Can't do it. Can't take Rakell out of there.

And hear me out, please, before coming to any conclusion, and let's start with a handful of stats-within-stats I've researched:

• Rakell tied Geno and Guentzel for the team lead with 11 power-play goals, this despite, again, Sullivan having waited until past the season's midpoint to have Rakell replace Bryan Rust on the first unit. In fact, Rakell's 268 minutes, 6 seconds of overall power-play ice time was way, way behind Geno's team-high 334:16 and Guentzel's 301:36.

• Of Rakell's 10 assists, seven were primary assists. I'll elaborate on why below, and it's significant.

• Of his 64 shots, 10 beat the goaltender and another 14 resulted in a rebound chance for a teammate. That brought a 17.19 shooting percentage, plus the lead in the rebounds column. Or, put another way, more than one-third of his shots produced a positive outcome, a staggering figure unto itself.

• This might be the favorite: His rate of 1.12 giveaways for every 60 minutes of power-play time was the lowest among the first-unit regulars. Geno had the most at 5.03, Letang the second-most at 4.15, and no one else had even half that many. Nothing kills a power play quite like handing the puck to the penalty-killers.

• And this might be the most relevant: Over the season's final 10 games, when the power play at long last was clicking -- 10 of 43 for 23.3% -- Rakell either scored or set up seven of those 10 goals.

I know, right?

Now for the visuals, all of which I've willfully culled from the one game that meant the most to the Penguins all season, that awful April 3 loss to the Rockford IceHogs that saw the power play go 1 for 5:

Rakell doesn't finish here, obviously. But I'm including it because, for this power play in general to excel with Karlsson at the point, there'll need to be a ton of these basketball-type passes down low. Letang finds Sid at the right lip of Petr Mrazek's crease, leaving Sid with the choice of slipping across to a right-handed shooter for a one-timer or shooting, and he amusingly tries both, though Mrazek thwarts it with a sprawling save. But he had the options.

The right shot's a must. Without Rakell, there are three lefty forwards.

See this, too:

Everyone defines a power-play quarterback differently. But in these parts, unlike most parts, it's often been a forward on the half-wall. Mario Lemieux on the left, Jaromir Jagr on the right, Phil Kessel on the left, etc. And it was fun to watch Rakell grow gradually into a Kessel-type presence on the left. He could step in toward the middle and threaten the PK box with a shot, a pass, even a move there himself, and all three had to be taken seriously.

Above, he appears to start a survey of the ice but suddenly snaps a shot Sid's way in hopes of a tip or rebound. Almost got 'em both.

Here's another:

Very different alignment. Letang's atop an umbrella formation and, with Rakell and Guentzel, flanking, Geno joins Sid all the way up front. But the objective's the same, and Rakell waits for Geno to take what Sullivan calls the 'bumper' spot between the hashes for a misdirection, then again feeds Sid.

Also related to the 'bumper' and noteworthy:

This is Geno searching for Guentzel in that spot, and he's doing so from the Karlsson location where the latter led the NHL in passes into the slot last season. This one doesn't work. Partly because Guentzel's a lefty and couldn't one-time. (No one could.) Partly because he's seldom been a danger from that distance, anyway.

Know who is?

Hint: He might've been Geno’s intended target on that pass.

Finally, the evening's lone power-play goal:

All Rakell. All of it. My goodness.

I know who the names are. I know what they've done. I know what they still can do. And you'd better believe I know that the Penguins, notably Sullivan, have a hard time effecting change. I get that, too. Three of these guys are the Core. The other finishes more players than any of them. And I don't envy the decisions the coaches will have to make, from personnel to strategy, to very rightly accommodate the superlative talent they're about to add.

But that up there, my friends, isn't the player to unplug.