Preseason Game 1 Recap: Pens Get Carved, Fall 3-2 in Buffalo

Allegedly, an iteration of the Penguins roster took to the ice last night to open up their first of 6 preseason matchups heading into the October 4th regular season opener against the Caps.

There was, in fact, some video evidence of this event.  However, unless you enjoy self-mutilation*, you probably didn’t see the game.

*live in Buffalo

Now, much like literally every other game against the Sabres over the last 4 or so years, there probably isn’t a whole lot to take away from it.  Buffalo iced a pretty strong lineup by their pisspoor standards, namely their top 2 forward lines, top 4 D, and starting goalie, which included the likes of Jack Eichel, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Ristolainen, and new boys Jeff Skinner, Vlad Sobotka, Carter Hutton, and that most recent #1 overall pick Rasmus Dahlin.

The Penguins played…Jake Guentzel, Dan Sprong and Olli Maatta.

Casey “The Smith” DeSmith got the nod between the pipes for the Pens and went the full distance, giving up 3 goals on 29 shots for a rather underwhelming .897 SV% despite having a decently strong showing.  However, in the opening 20 minutes, The Smith was extremely sharp in bailing out Dominik Simon’s neutral zone turnover and robbing some guy named CJ Smith (no relation) on a backdoor one-T.

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Perhaps the deepest, hidden meaning in this one is that hockey is basically officially back and goddamn does it feel good.

LINEUP

Tonight’s lines →
Guentzel – Grant – Sprong
Aston-Reese – Bellerive – Simon
Wilson – Dea – Angello
Di Pauli – Blueger – Hayes

Maatta – Riikola
O’Neill – Ruhwedel
Summers – Elliott

DeSmith
Jarry

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 18, 2018

Our lines tonight 🔥

Skinner-Eichel-Okposo
Rodrigues-Mittelstadt-Pominville
Smith-Sobotka-Bailey
Girgensons-Asplund-Baptiste

Scandella-Ristolainen
Dahlin-McCabe
Pilut-Borgen

Hutton
Wedgewood

— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) September 18, 2018

GOALS

BUF – 1st Pd./19:53 – PPG – Sobotka – 1-0

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Late in the first period with the Penguins shorthanded on a 5v3 with Sprong and Chris Summers in the box, the Sabres were able to open the scoring with their likely first PP unit on the ice.  Standard shit as they whipped the puck around the Pens PK triangle, getting it to the front of the net and getting a few fortuitous bounces, ending with Sobotka getting the last touch as Ruhwedel potted his first of the year.

BUF – 2nd Pd./6:06 – McCabe; A: Rodrigues, Sobotka – 2-0

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Buffalo continued to torment the Pens in the 2nd frame, as seen above.  Sobotka, at the end of his shift, did just enough to slip the biscuit down deep to Rodrigues lurking.  He turned on the jets, circling the wagons and forcing Maatta to chase him, pulling Maatta out of position.  With Rodrigues finding himself up at the point, Jake McCabe cheated down into the open space in front of The Smith, previously vacated by Maatta, to redirect a Rodrigues shot-pass off DeSmith before banging home the rebound for what will go down as probably the best goal Jake McCabe’s ass will ever score.

BUF – 2nd Pd./13:44– SHG – Eichel; A: Pilut – 3-0

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Then, on the other side of the halfway mark, Vladimir Sobotka found himself in the box for tripping up Grendel to put the Pens on the P for the first time in the game.  As Buffalo worked through their progressions on the kill, Pilut was able to seal the wall and loft one up to a streaking Jack Eichel splitting Maatta and Riikola.  It looked damn near effortless how easily he blew by the two Finns.  In three strides at center ice, he made Maatta look like he was just an iceberg hanging out in the Arctic.  Quick little move to beat The Smith on the breakaway and that was all she wrote.

PIT – 3rd Pd./15:43– O’Neill; A: Blueger – 3-1

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The Pens did make it a little interesting in the 3rd, where for the first time in the game they actually broke even on shot attempts in the game.  Their first goal of the preseason came directly from set faceoff in the offensive zone, won by Teddy Blueger back to Will O’Neill (not a real name), to throw a seeing-eye wrister through traffic to beat Hutton near post.

PIT – 3rd Pd./16:21 – Riikola; A: Sprong, Guentzel – 3-2

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Under a minute later, the young bucks would make it a little more interesting, scoring once again off a faceoff from the exact same circle.  Derek Grant got a little help from Guentzel, who took the puck off his skate to a jumping Dan Sprong.  Sprong, rather than use his first instinct to shoot, froze the Sabres and dished it to Riikola at the point for a clapper that looked to go in off Scandella in front.  Doesn’t matter.

Ball game.

NOTES

• Jusso Riikola’s skating and puck movement really stood out to Jacques Martin and Co. in his 19:41 of ice time.  That’s obviously why they brought him over from KalPa in the first place, so one would have to imagine he’s going to give the coaching staff something to think about as we get closer to October.
• Good to see Jordy Bellerive out on the ice after his incident in the offseason.
• As you’d probably expect given the two lineups, the Pens got hammered in the puck possession game.  As mentioned, at 5v5, the Penguins registered 10 attempted shots on goal vs. the Sabres 10 in the 3rd period.  However, in the first, the Sabres took the edge 17-8 and 14-11 in the 2nd.  Per math, that came out to the Sabres owning 58.57% of the attempted shot share for the game (41-29).  Buffalo created 15 scoring chances and 8 high danger chances to the Penguins 11 and 4 respectively (57.69%//66.67%).  What’s noteworthy, too, is the location of unblocked shots Buffalo had (stats and heatmap by naturalstattrick.com), which, as you’ll see below, was right in The Smith’s kitchen:
• On ice, only JS Dea, Ruhwedel, Riikola, and ZAR posted CF% above 50%.  Relative to the team, those 4, along with Simon, were tops in driving play.  At the other end of the spectrum, the line of Guentzel-Grant-Sprong got smoked at right around 36% while Maatta sat at a paltry 38.89% and, relative to the team, the Pens were better at generating shot attempts and scoring chances with those 4 on the bench.  Maatta did find himself out against the Skinner-Eichel-Okposo line an awful lot, so it’s not all that surprising.

Some other Pens players will head to Detroit tonight for the 2nd preseason game for a 7:30 faceoff on NHL Network.  Do it.