When Danton Heinen left PPG Paints Arena early in the evening April 9, he didn’t have much professional reason to celebrate. Heinen just endured a fourth consecutive loss with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He had scored in just one of his previous 13 games.

Later that night, though, Heinen was celebrating in a big way. Since, his fortunes on the ice appear to have turned, too.

Heinen’s alma mater, the Denver Pioneers, won the NCAA hockey championship April 9, and Heinen has since put together a three-game goal streak. That matched a career high and provided a new career high in goals for a player who in his first season with the Penguins mostly has played a bottom-six role.

“It was super awesome to see,” Heinen said late last week about watching Denver win its seventh Frozen Four title. “I’m so happy for them and for the school and alumni. I know me and (teammate and fellow former Pioneer Jason Zucker) are pumped about it. It’s great to see. I couldn’t be more proud to be a Pioneer.”

Heinen has manifested that pride in scoring in each of the past three Penguins games — during both sets of a home-and-home with the New York Islanders and again Saturday at his former team, the Boston Bruins. Those were Heinen’s 15th, 16th and 17th goals of the season, moving him past the 16 he had during his first full NHL season in 2017-18.

— NHL (@NHL) April 14, 2022

This current stretch is reminiscent of the first three games of this season after Heinen had joined the Penguins on a one-year, $1.1 million deal as an unrestricted free agent. Regardless of anything else Heinen provides, it’s fair to say 17 goals is a good return on that investment for general manager Ron Hextall.

“I think Danton has played pretty well as of late,” coach Mike Sullivan told reporters in Boston on Saturday. “He’s playing the game with a lot more urgency. I think some of the things that we talked to Danton about in just trying to help his overall game is doing a lot of the little things, just things like wall play and gaining lines, gaining zones, helping us on a forecheck or defending what we need him to when we don’t have the puck. We felt if he focused on those areas of the game, he would get scoring chances.”

Heinen has been quite adept at that, at least as measured by the chances the Penguins are generating while he’s on the ice relative to those they are allowing opponents. Among regulars on the current roster who have played at least half of the team’s games this season, the Penguins’ best percentage of 5-on-5 scoring chances for (57.5%) and high-danger scoring chances for (58.39%) are when Heinen is on the ice (according to naturalstattrick.com) as opposed to any other player.

Heinen also outpaces teammates such as Sidney Crosby (0.84), Evgeni Malkin (0.92) and Bryan Rust (0.78) in goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time this season. Heinen averages 1.03 goals for every 60 minutes he has skated at even strength, second only to sniper Jake Guentzel (1.25) among Penguins players.

Fourteen of Heinen’s goals have come at even strength this season, trailing only Guentzel (30), Crosby (21) and Rust (15) — and Rust is ahead by only one.

Hard to believe, in that context, that Heinen has as many goals in his past three games as he’d produced in his previous 27 games (three).

“I know there are ups and downs throughout the year,” Heinen said, “and you go through stretches where you feel good and you go through stretches where you don’t.”

So why the hot stretch of production now?

“I don’t know if I can put a finger on it,” Heinen said. “I think just trying to stick to what’s got me here and what’s worked and not try to change too much when things aren’t going well and try to keep those downs limited and try to be more consistent.”

Keep up with the Pittsburgh Penguins all season long.

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