Penguins Practice: O’Connor Gives it His Best Shot … and Misses

CRANBERRY — Drew O’Connor scored three goals on nine shots during the Pittsburgh Penguins’ first six games this season.

It was not realistic to expect him to maintain that pace.

After all, that projected to 41 goals over a full season, and O’Connor got just 16 goals in 79 games during 2023-24, his first full season in the NHL.

But neither was it logical to imagine that he would go 0-for-39 from the field over the following 24 games, which is why he remains stuck on three goals heading into the Penguins’ game in Montreal Thursday at 7:08 p.m.

And while he’s a capable two-way player — O’Connor is averaging two minutes, five seconds of shorthanded work per game, making him one of the leaders among Penguins forwards — it’s not as if he’d been used in a strictly blue-collar role.

Although he dropped down to the third line, alongside Blake Lizotte and Michael Bunting, during practice Wednesday at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, he had been the left winger on the second line, which means he’s working alongside future Hall of Famer Evgeni Malkin.

Cody Glass moved into his old spot with Malkin and Philip Tomasino during Wednesday’s workout.

O’Connor stayed on the ice long after practice ended, working on his game around the net, and did not speak with reporters. However, he has a teammate familiar with what he is going through, having experienced similar difficulties just a year ago.

Those struggles gave Rickard Rakell an appreciation for the difficulty of not allowing goal-scoring issues to affect other facets of his game.

“It is hard,” he said. “I know, for sure. … You have to trust your game. A lot of times, it’s almost like you’re working hard and sometimes you rush plays, instead of taking some extra time.”

Coach Mike Sullivan said “it’s human nature” for players to hyper-focus on offense when they’re in a slump.

“When you’re struggling offensively, you just dwell on the fact that you haven’t scored,” he said. “The conversation you have with yourself is, ‘I’ve got to score. I’ve got to score. I’ve got to score.’ ”

He added, however, that O’Connor’s overall game hasn’t been affected by his goal-scoring issues.

“Just because (O’Connor) hasn’t scored goals doesn’t mean he hasn’t helped us win games,” Sullivan said. “He brings a lot more to the table than just scoring goals. Would we like him to find the back of the net a little bit more? Sure. But he’s a big part of our penalty-kill. He’s a great puck-pursuit guy. He’s willing to block shots. He’s a sound, conscientious player defensively.”

Sullivan said he and assistant coach Mike Vellucci have stressed the importance that O’Connor “just focus on playing the right way, and the details associated with that.”

That, he said, ultimately will put O’Connor back on the path to generating goals.

“When you play the game the right way,” Sullivan said, “the by-product is, you find a way to create offense.”

Losing their touch

O’Connor, it must be noted, is not the only Penguins forward who has been unable to get pucks past opposing goalies lately.

Sidney Crosby doesn’t have a goal in seven games, Noel Acciari is in a 14-game drought and Cody Glass’ goal during the Penguins’ 6-2 loss to Colorado Tuesday was his first in 17 games since joining the Penguins as a free agent.

Ups and downs of power plays

The Penguins failed to score on four tries with the man-advantage against the Avalanche, but it was a major force in their 5-2 victory against Toronto three nights earlier, converting two of five tries.

Sullivan said that while he is generally satisfied with its improvement from last season — “What I like about it is that we’re scoring goals and we’re not giving up any” — he understands that its productivity will not necessarily be consistent.

“We’ve had our moments when we’ve been really good, and we’ve had our moments when it’s been a bit of a struggle,” he said. “My guess is that if you asked 31 other coaches in the league, they’d probably have the same observation on power plays. That’s the nature of power plays.”

The Penguins rank 14th in the NHL, with a conversion rate of 21.6 percent, after finishing 30th with a 15.3 percent success rate in 2023-24.

Penguins Line Combinations

Here are the lines and defense pairings from the Pittsburgh Penguins’ practice:

Rickard Rakell-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Cody Glass-Evgeni Malkin-Philip Tomasino
Michael Bunting-Blake Lizotte-Drew O’Connor
Kevin Hayes-Noel Acciari-Anthony Beauvillier

Owen Pickering-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves-Matt Grzelcyk

Extra: Jesse Puljujarvi, Ryan Shea