Penguins Dominate Coyotes 6-2 in Season Opener

Story by Yinzer Crazy Featured Penguins' Contributor Patricia Beninato

The Penguins got their 2022-23 season started off right, although it was a more competitive game than the 6-2 score might have indicated. Their opponent, the Arizona Coyotes, are in the middle of a rebuild, but there were times when they gave the Pens all they could handle.

The first goal of the year—amazingly the first time he’d done so in his long and storied career—was scored by Sidney Crosby less than ninety seconds into the first period, with Jake Guentzel and Kris Letang on the assists. Three minutes later, Jason Zucker said “I’m BA-ACK” with his own goal, helped out by Danton Heinen and one of the new Penguins, Jeff Petry. Guentzel handed out milkshakes less than a minute later on a power play, assisted by Sid and Bryan Rust, and it looked like the rout was on because the Coyotes barely shot in the first period.

They did wake up in the second period, with bounce-around dude Nick Ritchie scoring on a power play courtesy of a Marcus Pettersson trip at 16:10. However, Geno reminded us all that he is score on his own power play goal, with Sid and Tanger on the assists as it should be.

Ritchie scored again on yet another Pettersson penalty at 4:46 in the third—Petey seems to be setting himself up as this season’s Lord of Dumb Penalties—before the Penguins were like “okay, that’s enough of that.” Bryan Rust scored the next Penguins goal (Petterson had one of the assists, slightly redeeming himself; Zucker had the other) at 15:01, then Kasperi Kapanen put the tots on the game with a goal at 17:37, with Heiney and Jeff Carter helping him out. Things got a little feisty at the end, with Sid barking at the refs, and since many of us enjoy a ticked-off Sid it added some spice to the win.

Overall, it was a good-looking game, other than Petey’s dumb penalties, but the Penguins should look good against a young, rebuilding team. The Tampa Bay Lightning come to town Saturday, which I think will be a truer test for the Pens. We Pens fans are indeed spoiled by having Sid, Geno and Tanger back together for a literal record seventeenth year, and with solid pieces around them, hopefully they can put together something good.