Empty Thoughts: Penguins 3, Devils 1

Observations from the Penguins’ 3-1 win against the Devils:

First things first, there was no substantive update on Penguins forward Brandon Tanev. He participated in warmups but was scratched due to an undisclosed injury. Coach Mike Sullivan simply said he was being evaluated after the game.

As for the game itself, the Penguins’ opening goal came from an increasingly likely source in forward Zach Aston-Reese.

In his 20th game of the season, Aston-Reese scored his sixth goal, matching the total he collected during 2019-20 in 57 games.

On Saturday, he got his latest goal by doing what he needs to do in order to get goals at this level. He basically bulled his way to the net and got one. Nothing pretty but it was effective.

After the game, Aston-Reese reiterated a point he’s made before about having his left shoulder fully recuperated following offseason shoulder surgery.

“Just going back to having to get shoulder surgery was a little bit of a wake-up,” Aston-Reese said via video conference. “And changing kind of off-ice habits as far as diet and workout routines, adding stuff. You do some things right and you have success sometimes. … It’s just starting to pay off.”

When the Penguins signed Aston-Reese as an undrafted free agent out of Northeastern in March of 2017, former general manager Jim Rutherford boasted of Aston-Reese as being a potential replacement for former power forward Patric Hornqvist. Thus far, that forecast hasn’t come true. And there are few signs that Aston-Reese will ever become a regular 20-goal threat as Hornqvist was during his time with the Penguins.

But he’s clearly taken a step forward thanks in part to simply being healthy as well as being far more assured in his abilities.

“I think he’s more confident with the puck,” Sullivan said. “He’s hanging onto pucks in the offensive zone. He’s playing to his strengths as well. He’s a strong kid. He can go to the net. The goal he got tonight was a perfect example. Just his second effort on the puck and just staying with it in the traffic and bringing pucks into the scoring area I think plays to his strengths. I’m sure with each goal that he scores, he gains a little bit more confidence.”

What happened

The Devils took a lead 7:19 into regulation. Gaining the offensive zone on the right wing, Devils forward Jesper Bratt fed a cross-ice pass to the left circle for defenseman Sami Vatanen who ripped an immediate one-timer on net. Goaltender Casey DeSmith read the play, slid to his right and fought off the shot but allowed a rebound above the crease. Devils forward Kyle Palmieri crashed in, beat Penguins forward Bryan Rust to the puck and pushed a forehand shot into a vacant cage for his fifth goal of the season. Assists went to Vatanen and Bratt.

A two-goal outburst in the second period within a span of 1:36 gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead.

First, things were tied, 1-1, at the 4:59 mark. Aston-Reese gained the offensive zone on the left wing. Facing resistance from Vatanen, Aston-Reese chipped a pass to forward Sam Lafferty in the high slot. Lafferty tried to settle the bouncing puck but lost it in the left circle where Aston-Reese reclaimed it and snapped a wrister under goaltender Scott Wedgewood’s left leg for his sixth goal. Lafferty and defenseman Marcus Pettersson collected assists.

They took their first lead at the 6:35 mark on a power play. After Penguins forward Jake Guentzel won a puck battle against Devils forward Pavel Zacha on the right half wall of New Jersey’s zone, Rust claimed the puck, curled around into the right circle and attacked the net. Fighting through a stick check from Devils defenseman Damon Severson, Rust approached the crease, deked from his forehand to his backhand and lifted the puck with a smooth shot past Wedgewood’s blocker for his 11th goal. Guentzel and forward Sidney Crosby registered assists.

(Note: If you look at the right corner of the offensive zone, Crosby and Devils defenseman P.K. Subban were battling in a scrum in the corner. Don’t put it past Crosby to have goaded Subban into a confrontation that allowed Rust a fairly clear lane to the net.)

The Penguins made it a 3-1 game at 14:25 of the third period. After Rust intercepted a clearing attempt by the Devils out of their own zone, Crosby settled the puck at the left point, surveyed the zone and lobbed a wrister toward the cage. Guentzel was positioned in the left circle and re-directed the puck with his stick behind Wedgewood for his 13th goal of the season. Crosby and Rust netted assists.

Statistically speaking

• The Penguins led in shots, 29-25.

• Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson led the game with six shots.

• Forward Nicholas Merkley led the Devils with five shots.

• Subban led the game with 24:48 of ice time on 28 shifts.

• Defenseman Kris Letang led the Penguins with 24:38 of ice time on 27 shifts.

• The Penguins controlled faceoffs, 32-24 (57%).

• Lafferty was 7 for 8 (88%).

• Zacha was 11 for 16 (69%).

• Penguins forward Jared McCann led the game with three blocked shots.

• Subban recorded the Devils’ lone blocked shot.

• DeSmith made 24 saves on 25 shots.

• Wedgewood made 26 saves on 29 shots.

Randomly speaking

• The Penguins’ penalty kill really made a difference in this game going 4 for 4 and limiting the Devils to one power-play shot on net.

Admittedly, the Devils have a lousy power play. It entered the game ranked 28th in the NHL with a conversion rate of 14.5%. But they found a way to score a key power-play goal in Thursday’s game against the Penguins that they won, 3-2.

The Penguins made some adjustments on Saturday and really limited the Devils’ ability to gain the offensive zone and also did well in short-handed faceoffs, going 5 for 8 (63%). Oh, by the way, they did it without the services of Tanev and Teddy Blueger, their top two penalty killing forwards.

The Penguins really leaned on four forwards in their place. Mark Jankowski (3:51), Colton Sceviour (3:51), Aston-Reese (3:36) and Frederick Gaudreau (2:30) all saw some major minutes on the penalty kill and were up to the task.

• McCann returned to the lineup after missing five games due to an undisclosed injury. With Tanev absent, McCann took over as the left wing on the second line. He was expected to center that line with Evgeni Malkin sidelined due to a suspected right knee injury. Instead, Evan Rodrigues centered the second line.

Either way, McCann was hard to notice offensively but he did seem to be committed defensively. He was back in his zone quite a bit providing support to the defensemen.

Logging 14:55 of ice time on 27 shifts, McCann had one shot and was 1 for 3 in faceoffs (33%).

• Rust’s goal was something special. He’s always been confident in shooting the puck but that has usually manifested itself into wristers or slappers. Making a spirited individual move to the net and unleashing a dazzling backhander as he did on Saturday was something rare for him.

• With Tanev scratched, Gaudreau took his place in the lineup. He logged 9:00 of ice time on 15 shifts and had one shot. He also was 3 for 3 (100%) on faceoffs.

• Not that the Penguins have an abundance of options at forward right now, but Anthony Angello did not help his case to stay in the lineup by taking two minor penalties.

• Maybe this is more of a commentary on the Devils, but so many of their shots hit DeSmith flush in the chest or torso. He just seemed to be really tuned in and made so many of his saves seem routine. He’s really been a steadying compound for his team this season.

Historically speaking

• Guentzel (229 points) surpassed forward Jan Hrdina (227) for 38th place on the franchise’s career scoring list.

• Sullivan coached his 400th career game.

Publicly speaking

• Aston-Reese on the penalty kill’s success on Saturday:

“We checked the tape from last game and we saw what we did wrong when we gave up the goal. We just put an emphasis on getting in the shot lane. Sometimes, it gets a little hard, you line yourself up with the (defensemen’s) body instead of a stick. So we corrected that detail. I thought we were far more aggressive today when we got the chance.”

• Sullivan on the penalty kill:

“The guys that were on the ice did a great job. Specifically, we did a pretty good job on limiting their success on their entries. We made the entries difficult, we made possession difficult. And when we do that, we can limit their zone time. That’s such an important aspect of killing penalties. We won some faceoffs which allowed us to get some 200-foot clears as well. If you can win that first faceoff, a lot of times it kills 20 seconds from, usually, their top power-play unit and they’ve got to expend energy gaining access back into your zone. So, the combinations of limiting the entries and the faceoffs, I think were a big part of it.”

• Penguins defenseman Cody Ceci on his team’s overall defensive effort:

“We found in (Thursday’s) game that we gave up a lot in the middle, a lot of grade-A scoring chances. We just started to play a little bit tighter, keep them on the outside. They were wheeling around the outside for a long time on some shifts, but we were trying to limit the chances we gave up in the middle and the (grade-A scoring chances).”

Visually speaking

• Game summary.

• Event summary.

• Highlights:

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