All of this is still very surreal, but the Pittsburgh Penguins opened their July training camp on Monday as they begin their preparations to chase the Stanley Cup, starting with their round-to-head matchup against the Montreal Canadiens.
The big question that was answered during Monday’s first practice was the combination of the front lines that coach Mike Sullivan was with.
What we were specifically looking for here was whether Jake Guentzel would immediately return to the Sidney Crosby line, and assuming he did, who would be the second winger for that trio.
Along with that is the question of where Jason Zucker might end up playing in the season.
The mystery here is mainly due to the fact that Penguins never had a completely healthy list this season and always tried to fix things anyway.
We know that Crosby and Guentzel have chemistry that works. But we also know that Guentzel and Evgeni Malkin dominated the last time we saw them together. Before the world went crazy, it was a daily question about these parts as to where Guentzel would play.
On Monday, we received our first clue: go back to Crosby.
Full lines and defense pairs on Monday:
Forward
Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Conor Sheary
Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Bryan Rust
Patrick Marleau – Jared McCann – Evan Rodrigues / Sam Lafferty
Zach Aston-Reese – Teddy Blueger – Brandon Tanev
Defending
Brian Dumoulin – Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson – John Marino
Jack Johnson – Justin Schultz
Chad Ruhwedel – Kevin Czuzman
Some thoughts:
- There were nine players retained due to possible secondary exposure to COVID-19, but the only NHL regulator outside of that group was Patric Hornqvist. Assuming he can return in a timely manner, you should realize that he enters the place of the third line that Evan Rodrigues and Sam Lafferty occupied on Monday.
- When it comes to defense lines and pairs, I honestly think it’s as close to the ideal as possible. It’s more or less exactly what I hoped a healthy list would be. You know that Guentzel and Crosby will work well together, just like the Malkin-Rust combination. Add Zucker to that mix and that’s a second line of dynamite. The fourth line has been a defensive hockey tour de force this season, and the third line has enough offense to strike fear into opponents. That group of forwards is as deep as any group the Penguins have had since their most recent Stanley Cup team. That’s 100% a championship caliber unit.
- In defense, I feel as good about the top four as I have in years. Letang and Dumoulin are as good as they are in the NHL when they are both healthy, and I love the potential of a Marino-Pettersson couple. Marino has been Jim Rutherford’s best addition of the season and probably one of the best he has done in three years. The only concern on defense, of course, is the third pairing with Johnson and Schultz. Each team has a defect. This is the defect of penguins. This is not to keep diving into the stack when it comes to these two, it is what it is. Right now I’m not even sure there is any other option. Splitting them up just stops a better pairing elsewhere and you really don’t want to do that because the other two pairings can be very good. At least this way, you can protect them in limited minutes and put them in positions where they can hide.
- We have been waiting all year to see what this team can do when it is healthy. If this particular lineup can stay on the ice, there is definitely great potential here. What changes would you make or want to see before the games start again?
