One of the old cliches in sports is that it takes some time to figure out what a team is all about. Regardless of the sport, it’s hard to know too much about any particular group until they’ve played roughly a quarter of the season, sometimes more.
The Pittsburgh Penguins, then, have done us a big favor in their first three games this year. They’ve shown us the good, the bad and the ugly, sometimes all in the span of 60 minutes.
The good? That would be a complete demolition of the Washington Capitals, one that saw the Penguins control play, score twice on the power play, have their stars dominate, and see Tristan Jarry get a shutout. It was such a textbook performance that even Tom Wilson’s attempt to fight near the end of the game seemed half-hearted. Mike Sullivan’s team outshot Washington 35-19 and played well with a lead.
The bad? I would term that the first 40 or so minutes against the Calgary Flames Saturday night. There was bad luck involved – promising power plays were thwarted by the posts – but the Penguins couldn’t get anything going and were badly outshot early on. Worse yet, they gave up a potentially back-breaking goal late in the second period to go down 1-0.
Of course, that was swiftly followed by the kind of good – great, actually – that few teams are capable of. Two goals in the first minute of the period, three in the first six, and then an Evgeni Malkin tally that functionally buried Calgary with just under six minutes to play.
The ugly? Of course, that was the first game. After staking themselves to a 2-0 lead, the Penguins allowed the lowly Blackhawks – projected to be a bottom-feeder even with top overall pick Connor Bedard around – to score the next four goals and pull off a 4-2 in front of a shocked PPG Paints Arena crowd.
The NHL season is too long, so there will occasionally be complete no-show games by either the Penguins or one of their opponents, but those outliers aside, you can bet that most games will end up as one of those three types. That’s just the way this team is built. Despite being the NHL’s oldest roster, they can still embarrass any opponent with pure, overwhelming skill on any given night. As they proved in the Calgary game, sometimes they can do all the necessary damage in just over half a period.
That said, that much skill assembled on one team means the occasional night where puck security and managing leads goes out the window in favor of taking chances, going for crazy passes and tic-tac-toe goals, and the Penguins inexplicably let an opponent, even one that looks overmatched on paper, back into a game.
It’s clear that Mike Sullivan’s task is going to be more or less the same as it is every year, with the same small handful of variables affecting his ability to do his job. He must convince a bunch of exceptionally talented forwards to button up their game whenever they get a lead, particularly of the two-goal variety. Tristan Jarry’s performance will be a major variable.
The one thing Sullivan has going for him that he has not in previous years is Erik Karlsson. It has become evident through three games that he’s likely to add every bit the explosive dimension the Penguins desired when they traded for him. He’s already had a great blue-line keep that led to a goal, and his effortless skating has made breakouts look much easier. Playing defense by simply continuing to play offense should become easier for this team with Karlsson around.
Despite turning over about a third of their roster this offseason, the Penguins’ DNA hasn’t changed. The roster is pretty clearly better, possibly a lot better, but a team that has been about offense and stars for 40 years is still very much about offense, still very much about stars.
Give them this, at least. You won’t have to sit around wondering about what kind of team they’re going to be in two weeks, or two months. They are exactly what they appear to be.
And hey, they’re 2-1 and already have 11 goals in three games. They might raise their coach’s blood pressure too often, but they also might be pretty darn good.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Mueller: Penguins show good, bad and ugly, all in first three games
