Many of the Penguins star player hadn’t played a game in months. One of their star players has never played a game with the team. Overall, it was a good night to get people back skating together and start the process of gelling as a team.

The Penguins earned a 3-1 victory fueled by another two Drew O’Connor goals as well as Rickard Rakell. O’Connor is a full timer and getting some offensive production is the next step in his NHL path. He’s been a decent xGF% player in his NHL career. On a team desperately looking for depth scoring O’Connor being able to pot some goals would be a huge boon to the offense

The @ErikKarlsson65 era has officially begun in Pittsburgh. 🐧 pic.twitter.com/OpXI0W8Uqr

— NHL (@NHL) September 28, 2023

This was Erik Karlsson’s Penguins debut and it was an overall successful one. You can see the things that make him great. His skating was on full display. There were times he was caught in the offensive zone and it looked like Marcus Pettersson was going to be caught alone only to have Karlsson bolt back and recover in time. His skating is dynamic, his puck skills are dynamic, and it will be a treat to watch this year even if some of these situations end up going sour for the Penguins. Steve Mears used an appropriate word when describing Karlsson last night, daring. I really like that description and it is the type of player I want to watch play.

Karlsson didn’t find the score sheet in his debut. Other than the super charged back checks it was a pretty uneventful outing for him. An uneventful night still found Karlsson leading all Penguins defensemen in CF% at 66.67 (CF 26 CA 23) and xGF% at 74.69. It is only preseason, but it is still pretty cool to be throwing out Erik Karlsson game stats from a Penguins game.

Tristan Jarry looked decent from a movement standpoint. I’ve found his mobility abilities to be adjacent to Marc-Andre Fleury in his ability to get his feet going post to post and make athletic saves. This was lacking during his injury riddled season. If he can move proper he will likely get back to making the saves he was making when he earned an all star appearance. This needs to happen. There’s really no other option.

The power play will be a work in progress. Letang has been running the power play up top for over a decade. Karlsson and the others will gel at some point. The talent is too good. There will be bumps in the road and there were signs of those bumps last night. The more authentic game action they get the more they will learn about playing with one another and the more dangerous it will get. I think it will be a major strength of the team this year and one I am excited for.

Penguins will be back in action on Monday against the Ottawa Senators. We will have to see if Mike Sullivan goes with the opening night lineup look again or gets other players involved. I think it will be the latter. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading!

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