The end of the preseason is approaching quickly, here’s how the Penguins were going in their second to last game of the exhibition campaign. The Buffalo Sabres bring a very strong roster to the proceedings, as to be expected this time of year for the home team. Pretty dull game early on that opened up […]
The end of the preseason is approaching quickly, here’s how the Penguins were going in their second to last game of the exhibition campaign.
The Buffalo Sabres bring a very strong roster to the proceedings, as to be expected this time of year for the home team.
Pretty dull game early on that opened up when the Pens got the game’s first power play. Tristan Broz did his thing, poking a goal home from in front of the net after Philip Tomasino took the puck hard to the crease. 1-0.
The lead didn’t last long, on the next shift Peyton Krebs played Ryan Shea like a fiddle, drawing the defender in and then passing around him to Josh Norris. Shea turned, hacked at Josh Norris and the ref’s arm went up for a penalty until Norris saved them all the trouble by tucking a goal on the backhand around the leg of Arturs Silovs. Nice play by Krebs and Norris there but that’s not film Shea will want to have on tape.
ffPittsburgh returned the favor with a goal on a delayed penalty call in the second period, Ben Kindel laid over a perfect pass for Matt Dumba to lean into and Dumba hammered it home. 2-1.
The Pens get another power play and convert it into another power play goal. Filip Hallander gets tied up in front of the net but pokes the puck out for Avery Hayes to lift into the net. 3-1.
Josh Norris scored in front early in the third period to bring the score back to 3-2.
Ville Koivunen gets the two-goal lead back by slipping in behind the defense and getting a nice pass from Shea and converting his rush chance. 4-2.
Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin makes the Pens pay with Blake Lizotte in the penalty box for high stick by skating through Joona Koppanen and Brunicke and then coolly flipping the puck by Silovs. 4-3 game.
Hallander scores into the empty net to finish it out, 5-3.
Some thoughts and stray observations:
- The #PickNicke is over…Owen Pickering and Harrison Brunicke got split up for the first time in a while. For a time at least, until Jack St. Ivany left the game after taking a shot off the skate scrambled all the defensemen around playing with five. As far the the youngsters, I thought their games went in different directions. Brunicke looked as confident and capable as ever, skating all over the ice like he does, controlling the puck, all systems go. Pickering..not so much. Not a smooth game, got trapped in his end, has troubles not turning the puck over breaking out, thought it was Pickering’s least impressive outing in a while.
- One shift in the first stood out as a real comedy of errors. Philip Tomasino was close to the wall and put Ryan Graves in a bad spot to fling the puck over to him but Graves had already bailed. It wasn’t a good idea to make the pass in the first place but Graves has a knack for aggravating things like that to back off and not even make himself an option for teammates. That led to a Buffalo chance, soon after Filip Hallander had some to go north with the puck and instead tried to go back to Graves and it got picked off leading to another two Buffalo chances. Ugly sequence of events.
- In fact, with St. Ivany out and the defense shuffled up, the common denominator of when the Pens got trapped in their own zone throughout the night was when the 27 of Graves was out there, with any number of different players. It can be easy to hyper-focus on his mistakes but it’s easy because it’s right out there in the open.
- It’s been said in seemingly every recap but it keeps happening and bears repeating about the impressiveness of Ben Kindel’s growth. Ironically enough it was in the same city of Buffalo a few weeks ago where he barely got a few puck touches in the first Prospects Challenge game and was hardly visible. He was great by the end of that, putting up a four-point game in the finale. Fast forward to Buffalo at (presumably) the end of Kindel’s NHL preseason and he’s out there wheeling around on the power play, confidently ripping cross-ice passes successfully through the middle of the ice or making a little between the legs back pass down low for Avery Hayes to get a chance, Kindel is looking very much like a guy picked 11th overall. There will probably be more talk considering (or maybe less charitably pandering) about if Kindel should get a regular season look. At this point, probably not. That’s a bit rich, it shouldn’t takeaway from what he’s been able to do and grow before our very eyes. Needless to say, expect big things from him back in juniors this season.
- Liked what Silovs did in this game, he’s big and tracked the play well, played in control. Flashed the glove big time on Tage Thompson. Silovs is one of the bigger unknowns heading into the season, if only since he’s new and hasn’t had a lot of NHL experience to go off of, he made a strong showing tonight. He’s got a big body and covers up a lot of the net, a lot to like as a tune up for the regular season.
- Any night by Silovs beats his counterpart considering Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen didn’t return for the second period with a lower body injury. Hopefully that was more precautionary than anything, he didn’t have any obvious incidents during the game. That’s always a preseason risk and potential bad result to see a key player go down, which speaks to why the best players only need a couple of games before the real action starts.
- Tonight marked the first time some players were on their offhand defensively. Jack St. Ivany played on the left, until he left the game in the first, and then Ryan Graves rotated in with Brunicke. Shea played on the right, as he did many a-time last season. Josh Norris really had Shea’s number; there was the goal in the first period and then Norris got in behind Shea for a point blank shot on the first shift of the second period.
- Broz is going to give the Pens something to think about. He scored his goal which is nice, he was good on the PK as well, which Dan Muse has talked towards liking his all around game. There’s certainly a conversation to be had about moving Tommy Novak to the wing and starting Broz in the NHL right off the bat.
- Avery Hayes was right there with him to find a loose puck and score a power play goal. It’s fitting that Broz and Hayes both score PPGs, both have had similarly impressive preseasons. Same thoughts apply, it’s still unanswered for just when Hayes will be in the NHL, but it ought to be sooner than later, assuming health.
- Liked the moxie from Tomasino, nothing overwhelming, just looked good aside from not tying up Norris’s stick in front of the net. Similarly, Dumba’s played a lot of preseason hockey and he looked good tonight, even besides the goal.
- On the flip side, quiet night for Heinen and Fabbri to my eye. Same for Acciari, thought being was his first game back after missing some camp time, that’s not a surprise or particularly telling. To an extent, all of those guys are known quantities as far as what they are likely to bring to the table, it’s just a matter of how much the team wants them.
- Koivunen was quiet all night and then — boom — he pops up behind the defense and scores. He’s a fun player to watch play, he picks his spots well and is always hovering, in a good way, around the play.
One more preseason game to go on Friday night at home against the Sabres. The stars should be out for the Penguins, for roster purposes it’ll be worth tracking who is joining them in the lineup.
Category: General Sports
