ST. LOUIS -- Sidney Crosby was succinct when asked Saturday night what the Penguins need to improve upon before their next game.
"A lot," he said. "I mean, every aspect, I would say.”
The Penguins' 4-2 loss to the Blues on Saturday here at Enterprise Center in St. Louis had few bright spots.
The box score would suggest that the Penguins controlled much of the play in the loss. They had nearly double the shot attempts that the Blues did, out-attempting them 83-45. They had a pretty sizable lead in the shots on goal too, at 33-21. While the Penguins dominated in the puck possession department, there's no doubting that the Blues were much more effective at getting off quality shot attempts.
"We did a good job of hanging onto (the puck), but we didn't do a good enough job of getting pucks through," Lars Eller would tell me after the game.
Mike Sullivan didn't identify any one aspect of the game that caused the Penguins' to come away with such a disappointing result. He acknowledged bad-decision making, and a lack of shots on the power play -- only three total shots on two failed attempts, which he called a "microcosm of the overall mindset.” The Penguins didn't "play with a purpose," either with the puck or without it, in the Blues' end.
"We didn't play hard enough and we didn't play smart enough," Sullivan said. "We got what we deserved.”
There was one line that did play consistently well, a 60-minute effort of exactly what the Penguins need to do to be successful. And they did so in their first game together as a line.
Saturday was the season debut for Radim Zohorna, who had a strong training camp and preseason but was sent down out of camp for what he said was explained to him and he totally understood as a "business decision." The Penguins wanted to claim defenseman John Ludvig off waivers the day season-opening rosters were due, and so they temporarily had to re-assign Zohorna to clear the necessary cap space. Zohorna looked set at the time to be the 13th forward, after another claim in Jansen Harkins impressed enough in his two preseason games with the Penguins to earn a spot on the third line.
After that preseason success from Harkins didn't quite carry over into the regular season, Kyle Dubas made the decision to waive and re-assign Harkins to Wilkes-Barre, and bring up Zohorna. Zohorna made the drive from Wilkes-Barre to Pittsburgh -- a drive that he laughed on Saturday about knowing all too well now -- and traveled with the team to St. Louis. With his recall needing to come after Friday's practice due to salary cap constraints and the Penguins only having an optional morning skate on Saturday, Zohorna didn't even have the opportunity to practice with his new linemates.
Sullivan opted to put Zohorna right in Harkins' old spot on the right side of the third line, opposite Drew O'Connor and centered by Eller.
From the first period, it was clear that there was an improvement in that line as early as their second shift. Eller carried the puck into the Blues' end and took a wrist shot from distance, close to the Blue line, and it was stopped by Jordan Binnington. O'Connor recovered the loose puck and took a wrist shot of his own from the right circle, then took a crack at his own rebound. Seconds later, Zohorna got a shot attempt off of his own from the bottom of the left circle that went wide.
In a span of 15 seconds, the line had gotten off four shot attempts, and some quality looks, too. It felt like more life than the line had shown in the first four games combined.
Those high-danger kinds of chances continued throughout the game. The Penguins generated few rebound opportunities for themselves, only seven total. Four of those came from the third line alone -- two for Zohorna, and one for each of his linemates.
"I thought Z played really well," said Sullivan. "I thought that line played hard."
The overall on-ice numbers reflect that. In the 8:19 of five-on-five time that those three were on the ice together, the Penguins controlled 87.50% (14-2) of all shot attempts, 91.67% (11-1) of all unblocked shot attempts, 90% (9-1) of all shots on goal, 100% (3-0) of all high-danger shot attempts, and 93.17% (.84-.06) of all expected goals. That's despite having three defensive zone faceoffs and only two in the offensive zone.
Eller led the Penguins in shots on goal with five. Zohorna had three, and O'Connor had two.
One of Zohorna's beat Binnington, the Penguins' only other goal of the game after Evgeni Malkin's breakaway out of the penalty box in the first period. O'Connor won a board battle, Eller took the initial shot, and Zohorna was ready at the net-front to bang in the rebound:
A big deficit to overcome, but Big Z was trying to make big moves for Pittsburgh. pic.twitter.com/AuGDzxBTcT
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 22, 2023
"Today was probably the best for our line so far," Eller said. "It worked pretty well with Z. We got more possession, we got shots, it was a step in the right direction from that standpoint."
Eller's qualifiers of "probably" and "a step" were too minimizing. It was definitely that line's best game, and it was a giant leap in the right direction. Beyond just the offensive production, the line was responsible in their own end and hard on forechecks. Eller and Zohorna were both credited with takeaways, and Eller had the line's lone blocked shot and Zohorna had the line's lone hit.
Eller did credit some of Zohorna's individual contributions for that line's resurgence. Eller liked Zohorna's ability to "keep pucks alive" and the way he used his 6 foot 6 frame. But more importantly, his hockey IQ was evident.
"He's got a good head on him," Eller said.
It's hard to ask for more from the third line, other than to have games like this consistently moving forward. We didn't see much physicality from them as far as hits, but they also just had the puck on their own sticks so often that hits weren't possible.
One game together is a pretty small sample size, but the things like the responsible two-way games and the willingness to go to those hard areas of the ice are things all three of those players have in their games. The Penguins' depth scoring woes may have just been significantly alleviated by one swap on the right wing. Time will tell.
If the Penguins' coaching staff just wants to show a supercut of shifts from the third line in this game in the team's next film session as an example of what to do, that wouldn't be a waste of time. They weren't kept to the perimeter and took the puck to the scoring areas consistently. They weren't afraid to actually shoot the puck. They made good decisions.
If nothing more, O'Connor, Eller and Zohorna just modeled for the rest of the team how they should be playing.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Enterprise Center:
1. Brandon Saad, Blues LW
2. Jordan Binnington, Blues G
3. Kasperi Kapanen, Blues RW
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Will Butcher is sidelined with an undisclosed injury sustained at the end of last season. He has resumed skating with a group in a non-contact capacity. He will be put on waivers to be sent down to Wilkes-Barre once healthy. He is on season-opening injured reserve, so his cap hit does not count.
• Forward Raivis Ansons is dealing with an upper-body injury sustained in the last month of the AHL season. He has resumed skating on his own. He will also be re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton once healthy and is also on season-opening injured reserve.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Drew O'Connor - Lars Eller - Radim Zohorna
Matt Nieto - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter
Ryan Graves - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea - Chad Ruhwedel
And for Craig Berube's Blues:
Brandon Saad - Robert Thomas - Jordan Kyrou
Jake Neighbours - Brayden Schenn - Kasperi Kapanen
Jakub Vrana - Kevin Hayes - Sammy Blais
Alexey Toropchenko - Nikita Alexandrov - Oskar Sundqvist
Nick Leddy - Colton Parayko
Torey Krug - Justin Faulk
Marco Scandella - Tyler Tucker
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins have a scheduled day off on Sunday. They'll be back to work for an 11 a.m. practice on Monday before Tuesday's 7:30 p.m. game against the Stars at PPG Paints Arena
THE CONTENT
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