Tim Benz: Rickard Rakell's arrival is one of many variables as Mike Sullivan shuffles Penguins line combinations

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan didn’t bother being coy with his response about long-term plans for Rickard Rakell Monday night.

Some were surprised to see the franchise’s prized trade acquisition on the third line with Jeff Carter and Kasperi Kapanen in his debut game against the Columbus Blue Jackets Monday night. After all, a lot of the appeal of acquiring Rakell from the Anaheim Ducks for three players and a draft pick was believed to be that the Penguins could slot him next to Evgeni Malkin on the second line and move Bryan Rust back up to Sidney Crosby’s right wing.

Following the Pens’ 5-1 romp over the Columbus Blue Jackets, Sullivan suggested that could happen soon enough.

“I don’t see him being a left wing with (Carter) in the big picture,” Sullivan said. “I think under the circumstances with very little sleep, coming across the country, and he has very limited knowledge of how we want to play … putting him in the top-6 tonight would have been a tough challenge. Maybe an unfair challenge. For any player.”

But Sullivan wasn’t 100% forthcoming either about what the 5-on-5 plan is when it comes to playing partners for Rakell. Maybe that’s just because he’s not completely certain himself yet.

“I would envision our coaching staff moving some people around the next few days, once Rakell gets more familiar with how we are trying to play, and we get more familiar with him,” Sullivan said. “We are going to try to put lines together that will give us balance but also give us complementary skill sets.”

Speaking as a Penguin for the first time after the victory, Rakell said that even though he played left wing as a right shot most of his career in Anaheim, he’d be open to playing on the right side of any line combination.

And he seemed fine easing into heavier minutes by starting off on the third-line left wing with Carter and Kapanen.

“I’m really comfortable playing both sides,” Rakell said. “I’m fine either way. We had some good scoring chances (Tuesday). We easily could have had one or two (goals). It’s something to build on moving forward.”

For as much as tinkering with Rakell may be an X-factor in the coming weeks for the Penguins, it’s the play of other wingers that may be even more of a variable. In a best-case scenario, Rakell fits nicely on Malkin’s left side as Kapanen wakes up and starts scoring a few goals on the right wing. Then Rust can move back to his accustomed right wing spot next to Crosby.

Optimally, Jason Zucker eventually comes back healthy, too, and provides a little scoring touch with Carter on the third line. That’d leave the likes of Danton Heinen, Brock McGinn, Evan Rodrigues, Brian Boyle, Radim Zohorna and Drew O’Connor to battle for three remaining forward slots next to Carter and fourth-line center Teddy Blueger.

Of course, that’s all pie-in-the-sky theory until the next injury comes along and the deck gets reshuffled once more. But in a perfect world, some sort of combination of Malkin with Kapanen, Rakell and Zucker as a second offensive threat — with a little scoring potential from the Carter line — is going to be needed come playoff time.

Otherwise, even with Rust returning to Crosby’s line, opposing coaches can load up with top defenders to slow the Guentzel-Crosby-Rust unit during a best-of-seven playoff series.

In Game 1 with Rakell in uniform, Boyle assisted on Zohorna’s second-period goal to get the Penguins their first point of the evening. Crosby and Rodrigues both were on the ice on Guentzel’s two even-strength goals. And Rust turned in a beautiful highlight with Malkin and Heinen on the ice as the Pens exploded for four second-period goals.

Bryan Rust

The @penguins are rollin' pic.twitter.com/PoyJsBflCE

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 23, 2022

Granted, Columbus isn’t a playoff team. Nor are the Buffalo Sabres, Wednesday night’s opponent. With a day off likely Thursday prior to Friday’s road game against the New York Rangers and a home game back in Pittsburgh against the Detroit Red Wings Sunday evening, don’t expect much practice time for the coaches to mess around with line combinations.

In fact, the Penguins don’t have consecutive days without a game until April 3 and 4 as they are traveling back from Denver in between halves of a home-and-home series with the Colorado Avalanche. So any experimentation that will be done is likely to happen on the fly.

As was throwing Rakell into the lineup just a few hours after he touched down in Pittsburgh. The initial results turned out just fine.

Moving forward after Buffalo and through April into the playoffs will be a much greater challenge.