Penguins Stay White Hot, Down Blue Jackets 6-3

Story by Yinzer Crazy Featured Penguins' Contributor Patricia Beninato

The Penguins continue their hot start, gaining their first road win of the young season against the Columbus Blue Jackets, although they looked borderline putrid in the first period. Maybe they were just trying to make things exciting.

We saw entirely too much of the Penguins’ zone in the first period, although Tristan Jarry acquitted himself as best he could. But as I noted during the live tweet, if you’ve got the other team hanging out in your zone like Columbus was, goals are going to happen, and sure enough the Blue Jackets struck first at 7:13 in the first, courtesy of their captain Boone Jenner and helped out by their high-profile signing Johnny Gaudreau. Jack Roslovic scored a unassisted short-handed goal (already somewhat of a problem for this season’s Penguins) at 18:44, and the Penguins found themselves down 2-0 heading into the first intermission.

But as we’ve seen so many times before, no one can rally the troops like Mike Sullivan. The Penguins came into the second period much more aggressively, and soon enough that culminated in a goal scored by newbie Penguin Josh Archibald, helped by fellow noob Ryan Poehling at 3:43. However, Kent Johnson scored right back, assisted by Roslovic. Then there was a lot of energetic skating until another new Penguin Jan Rutta scored at 10:04, with Kasperi Kapanen throwing some tots on it. Danton Heinen, on the first line with Jake Guentzel out, then tied things up at 14:19, assisted by Sidney Crosby and Marcus Pettersson.

Speaking of Sid, at 5:38 in the third period he got bored with the tie and slapped one past Elvis (who had not left the building) Merzlikins, helped out by Brian Dumoulin. Then the rout was on, with Heinen scoring again, assisted by P.O. Joseph and Sid, and Brock McGinn scored his first of the year, with Kapanen and Rutta with the assists.



While the Pens have been fun to watch as the 2022-23 season gets underway, I will remind everybody that it’s only October. It’s a long season, so don’t read too much into things and just enjoy the hockey—and right now there’s a lot to enjoy with the Pens. They’re scoring all up and down the lines, and Jarry’s looked excellent despite the slow start in this game. The new additions are helping as well. Let’s just go with LET’S GO PENS for now and not heap too many expectations on them right now.