Evan Rodrigues has earned trust as the Penguins' No. 1 center

Like most kids growing up in suburban Toronto, Evan Rodrigues was a fan of the Maple Leafs.

Rooting for his favorite player, prolific goal-scorer Alexander Mogilny, Rodrigues watched some good — but not great — Maple Leafs squads in the early 2000s routinely fall short of reaching a Stanley Cup Final.

Unlike most kids in Ontario, Rodrigues actually got a chance to be a member of the Maple Leafs.

For all of seven weeks.

During the late summer of 2020, Rodrigues was more or less Maple Leafs property and not so much an actual Maple Leafs employee.

At the time, Rodrigues was a pending restricted free agent. The Pittsburgh Penguins had dealt his signing rights to the Maple Leafs on Aug. 25 as part of a multi-player transaction that brought Kasperi Kapanen to Pittsburgh.

Coming off a contract with a healthy salary cap hit of $2 million — which he originally signed as a member of the Buffalo Sabres in July 2019 — Rodrigues had some discussions with the Maple Leafs about signing with them, but Toronto management opted to not extend a qualifying offer and allowed him to become an unrestricted free agent by Oct. 6.

Three days later, Rodrigues re-signed with the Penguins, agreeing to a one-year deal for $700,00, the league minimum. This past offseason, the Penguins gave Rodrigues a slight pay raise, re-signing him to a one-year deal worth $1 million.

On Saturday night, Rodrigues looked like he was worth well beyond that during the Penguins’ 7-1 rout of the Maple Leafs at PPG Paints Arena.

Deployed as the team’s top line center — as well as on the top power-play unit — as a result of the absences of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jeff Carter, Rodrigues put on a performance worthy of Mogilny’s exploits as he picked up a goal and an assist in the victory.

The goal was nice. He surveyed for a shooting lane and fired a wrister through a phalanx of legs and sticks for a power-play score during the third period.

But the assist might have been nicer.

During the second period, Rodrigues gained the offensive zone on the right wing, fended off Maple Leafs forward David Kampf and slipped a pass from the right circle to the slot for defenseman Marcus Pettersson, who fired a wrister for the Penguins’ fifth goal of the evening.

“You can tell when (Rodrigues is) on his game, his confidence is high,” Pettersson said. “We really trust him in our locker room. … He can make such good plays out there. He’s a smart player. You saw that goal. I didn’t really call for it. He just saw me.”

”I was a little behind at first, but he’s such a good player to make those plays that he can lift his head up and look for the second wave (of attack).”

Such offensive exploits haven’t been common in Rodrigues’ seven-year career. After all, he only has 91 points (37 goals, 54 assists) in 239 career games.

But someone other than Crosby or Malkin being the Penguins’ top center is uncommon as well.

However long this opportunity lasts, Rodrigues proclaims he isn’t altering his style to fill such a prominent assignment.

“That’s a mistake that a lot of — even myself, being a young guy when I first came into the league — that’s a mistake a lot of young guys make,” said Rodrigues, 28. “They get bumped up the lineup, and they try to either create more offense or try to play a different game. The reason why you have success and get to where you are is playing your game.

“Whoever is getting more minutes, you play your game, you do your thing and the game will take care of itself.”

Such a measured approach is what Penguins management has found appealing in Rodrigues, who is tied for the team lead in scoring with five points (three goals, two assists) in five games this season. In addition to valuing his ability to play all three forward positions, coach Mike Sullivan just simply trusts Rodrigues.

“The thing that I love about him is when we play him in the top six (forwards), he has a quiet confidence about him,” Sullivan said. “When you play up the lineup like that, there’s an expectation, there’s a pressure to perform and there’s pressure to produce. (Rodrigues), he’s not afraid of that. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite. He gets excited about it. He enjoys that opportunity, he enjoys those moments.”

Trust is something Rodrigues has enjoyed during his time in Pittsburgh. It’s a luxury he did not have toward the end of his time with the Sabres.

Frequently a healthy scratch throughout the 2019-20 season under former Sabres coach Ralph Krueger, Rodrigues requested a trade and was granted one to the Penguins in February of that season just before the trade deadline.

“It’s nice having trust in your coach,” Rodrigues said. “When your coach trusts in you and believes you, it gives you that extra confidence. I had a good first few years in Buffalo and then had one year where I just kind of didn’t get the minutes from the get-go. It’s always hard to get into a rhythm when you’re in and out of the lineup and you’re kind of one mistake away from being out of the lineup.

“Since I’ve been traded here and have had the chance to play and get regular minutes, I think I’ve gotten back to the game that made me successful and the game that got me to be an NHL player.”

Note: The Penguins had a scheduled day off on Sunday.

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