Analysis: Penguins forward Danton Heinen contributes early, scores 1st goal of NHL season

Some empty thoughts from the Penguins’ 6-2 win against the Lightning:

The Penguins didn’t make any major offseason acquisitions. In all reality, there were relatively few comings of note and mostly significant goings this past summer.

Cody Ceci, Brandon Tanev and Jared McCann were major components of a team good enough to win a division last season.

Tanev was largely replaced by Brock McGinn, the Penguins’ most prominent free agent signing.

Meanwhile, the team had a viable in-house replacement for Ceci with the steady but unspectacular Chad Ruhwedel.

As for McCann? That was a bit trickier.

With the Penguins missing some major offensive firepower in 2020-21 due to injuries, McCann found a groove and picked up some of the slack. He even led the team with seven power-play goals and boosted a special teams unit that struggled out of the gate.

Today, he’s a member of the Seattle Kraken. The Penguins dealt him to the Toronto Maple Leafs — who then lost him in the expansion draft — in a trade that was primarily driven by a tight salary-cap figure.

With precious little cap space to work with, they extended a modest one-year deal worth $1.1 million to Danton Heinen.

Coming off an unremarkable season with the Anaheim Ducks, there was little reason to suspect he would offer more than the 14 points (seven goals, seven assists) he offered in 43 games last season.

But with the Penguins dealing with some major absences in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Zach Aston-Reese, Heinen was elevated to the left wing of the top line throughout a preseason in which he collected four points (one goal, three assists) in four games.

On Tuesday, in his first game of consequence with the franchise, he scored the first goal of the entire NHL season.

After Penguins forward Jeff Carter forced Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy into a turnover on Tampa Bay’s end boards early in the second period, Carter slid a pass to the right circle. Heinen read the play like a novel and found a soft spot with just enough distance from Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh to lift a wrister into a mostly vacant cage.

Heinen could have shot the puck with a whisk broom and scored just as easily given how badly out of place Vasilevskiy was. Regardless, his sense to find a good area to receive Carter’s pass displayed a great level of hockey intelligence team management has been touting since signing Heinen.

In a fairly short period of time, that aptitude meshed well on the team’s makeshift top line with Carter and Bryan Rust.

“He’s fit in well,” Carter said. “He’s a bigger guy that moves well. He’s got a lot of skill, I think probably more skill than people realize. It’s been good. (Rust) is kind of that workhorse on our line. And (Heinen) kind of follows him, gets in those dirty areas. It’s been good.”

Whenever Guentzel is able-bodied enough to return to the lineup, he’ll reclaim his role on the left wing of the top line. For Heinen, he’s just trying to make the most of his temporary assignment before being asked to fill another void in the lineup.

“We all know who’s out of the lineup,” Heinen said. “Everybody’s just got to pick up their game a little and carry a little more weight. It’s a good opportunity for some guys.”

Statistically speaking

• The Penguins controlled shots, 35-29.

• Penguins forwards Dominik Simon, Jason Zucker and Heinen as well as Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak each led the game with four shots.

• Penguins defenseman Kris Letang led the game with 25:16 of ice time on 29 shifts.

• Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman led his team with 23:54 of ice time on 26 shifts.

• The Lightning had a 35-34 edge in faceoffs.

• Carter was 15 for 26 (58 %).

• Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli was 10 for 15 (67 %).

• Penguins forward Brock McGinn and Hedman each led the game with three blocked shots.

Randomly speaking

• He wasn’t perfect. In fact, he combined with Letang on a puck-handoff behind their net that went bad and resulted in Tampa Bay’s second goal. But Tristan Jarry was sharp in this game for the most part. The Lightning didn’t have a great game but through the sheer talent on the roster, that team generated several quality shots when the game was scoreless or even within a one-goal deficit. Jarry was up to the task and even looked like he might pitch a shutout until the Lightning scored late.

Nothing will erase Jarry’s malfunctions in the playoffs last spring, particularly a mere regular season win. But this was an important win for him in a variety of ways.

• The notion of a “good road game” always seemed like a tired, mindless cliché to this author. But the Penguins largely did that on Tuesday. With so many of their best players absent, the Penguins played a fairly basic game that was still aggressive. They really outskated the Lightning for most of the night and as a result, controlled the puck a great deal. There weren’t many chances taken by the visitors. But when there were, they really capitalized.

Things could change once the likes of Crosby and Guentzel return in the near future (to say nothing of Malkin down the road). But this was a winning formula for a team operating at less than 100%.

• What a story Brian Boyle has been. He did not play at all in the NHL last season because no one offered him a contract. He basically trained and stayed in shape hoping someone would come calling. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan got management to extend a tryout and Boyle turned that into a one-year contract.

On Tuesday, he scored the Penguins’ second goal and did it by displaying some impressive speed for a 6-foot-6 and 245-pound mammal.

• One thing that is evident with Boyle based upon interviews with him is his knowledge of the game. He speaks like a coach when breaking down the technical aspects of defending the net or even the more intangible parts of the game like emotion.

He hasn’t lasted for 13 — now 14 — seasons in the NHL without knowing the game as well as he does.

• Boyle’s linemate, Sam Lafferty, had a very impressive pass to set up Boyle’s goal. Beyond that, he played a fairly responsible game, had a solid shift on the penalty kill and was 4 for 8 on faceoffs.

If the Penguins are completely healthy — a notion that is more of an ideal than a reality — Lafferty isn’t in the lineup. But he needed a good start to his season and came through in his limited role.

• The Lightning will have better nights than Tuesday. Tampa Bay’s players seemed to be in a bit of a haze perhaps with the pregame ceremony to raise the 2020-21 Stanley Cup championship banner. Things just seemed to off too much for a team this talented.

If this was a ho-hum game in the middle of the grind of January, it very well could have been a much different outcome.

• There was only one power-play opportunity for each team. That probably benefited the visiting team more than the hosts.

Historically speaking

• The Penguins scored three empty net goals during a single game for the first time in franchise history. Forwards Teddy Blueger, Evan Rodrigues and Rust were the history makers.

• The NHL record of five empty net goals in a contest was set by the Chicago Blackhawks in a 10-2 home win against the Montreal Canadiens, April 5, 1970.

• Only two other teams have ever recorded three empty net goals in a single game:

In addition to the Hawks (who had 5), the only other NHL teams to record 3 ENGs in one game are Detroit (Oct. 26, 1984 vs. Buffalo) and Edmonton (March 25, 1981 @ Hartford).

— Bob Grove (@bobgrove91) October 13, 2021

• The Penguins established a franchise record with 16 empty net goals last season in only 56 games. They’re 18.7% percent of the way toward tying that mark.

• Dominik Simon scored his first regular season goal since a 4-3 road win against the Washington Capitals on Feb. 20, 2020.

• Heinen became the 544th player to score a regular season goal for the Penguins.

• Boyle became the 545th player to score a regular season goal for the Penguins.

• Boyle became the 27th player to wear No. 11 for the Penguins. His predecessors:

Gene Ubriaco, Tracy Pratt, Nick Harbaruk, Bernie Lukowich, Vic Hadfield, John Flesch, Tom Cassidy, George Ferguson, Anders Hakansson, Rocky Saganiuk, Tim Tookey, Troy Loney, Dwight Mathiasen, Lee Giffin, Alain Lemieux, Warren Young, John Cul len, Alek Stojanov, Shawn Antoski, Darius Kasparaitis, Alexandre Daigle, Lasse Pirjeta, Guillaume Lefebvre, Jordan Staal, Kevin Porter, Frederick Gaudreau

• Forward Brock McGinn became the 40th (!) player to wear No. 23 for the Penguins. His predecessors:

Bill Speer, Mel Pearson, Bob Woytowich, Ted Lanyon, Jean Guy Legace, Doug Barrie, Rick Kessell, John Stewart, Bob Leiter, Eddie Shack, Larry Bignell, Nelson Debenedet, Ed Gilbert, Jim Hamilton, Rod Schutt, Gary Rissling, Doug Lecuyer, Rich Sutter, Andy Brickley, Wally Weir, Randy Hillier, Kjell Samuelsson, Paul Stanton, Chris Joseph, Domenic Pittis, Fredrik Olausson, Victor Ignatjev, Steve Leach, John Jakopin, Dan Trebil, Steve McKenna, Shane Endicott, Eric Boguniecki, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ryan Craig, Trevor Smith, Chris Conner, Steve Downie, Scott Wilson

• Heinen became the sixth player to wear No. 43 for the Penguins. His predecessors:

Jeff Daniels, Tomas Surovy, Philippe Boucher, Scott Wilson, Conor Sheary

Publicly speaking

• Lightning coach Jon Cooper summed up his group’s outing fairly well:

“We could have played Pittsburgh’s farm team tonight and we might have seen the same results.”

Visually speaking

• Game summary.

• Event summary.

• Highlights:

Follow the Penguins all season long.