Post-Game Buzz: Penguins flash blueprint of how to overachieve in 3-0 win over Rangers

Penguins 3 – Rangers 0 (F)

The Pittsburgh Penguins not the New York Rangers looked like the team with a fresh new coach adrenaline rush. The Penguins spoiled Mike Sullivan’s Rangers debut with a 3-0 shutout win. Arturs Silovs stopped all 25 shots for his first career NHL shutout, while Justin Brazeau scored late in the first period off a blown coverage on a faceoff as Pittsburgh never trailed and held a lead for over 40 minutes in this one. Brazeau and Blake Lizotte would later add empty net goals to seal the win.

It was just Game 1 of 82 for a hockey club some pundits have predicted as bad as finishing 30th in the NHL, there’s even a points projection model for the Penguins that had them as low as 74 points. However, if there was ever a blueprint of how the Penguins are going to overachieve in 2025-2026 and put themselves in lot of 50-50 winnable games, it was this one.

“I thought we got contributions from everybody,” head coach Dan Muse said in winning his NHL debut. “I think that’s the really exciting part is just the way the guys got it done with contributions from throughout the lineup. It’s a good start.”

Muse isn’t sugar coating it.

The Evgeni Malkin line (Mantha-Malkin-Brazeau) was tremendous in playing big and fast. They seemed to be a threat all night when the Sidney Crosby line was oftly quiet. Then you could make an argument the 4th line of Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari was Pittsburgh’s second best line of the night.

What mattered, though, of how the Penguins have to survive this season was the systematic play. Still can’t figure out what we were watching without d-men pinching inside the offensive zone at every inopportune moment and 20 odd-man breaks coming the other way. When there was a breakdown, the Penguins were in position to recover well. That was a sight to see.

“Maybe there were some breakdowns when we were in a good position to recover and come back and take away the dangerous ice,” Muse said of a collaborated defensive effort.

It was striking how the Rangers seemed to never have their legs and push the pace. A slower, low event hockey style of game favored the Penguins and that played out pretty much through the entire 60 minutes. 5 vs 5 the Rangers were credited with 1 Rush Attempt. The Artemi Panarin line was non-existent and minus a couple moments here and there from the JT Miller line where Mika Zibanejad was arguably New York’s biggest threat, it was a win for Pittsburgh when Conor Sheary was one of the Rangers most noticeable players on the ice.

For Dan Muse and his staff there was a great Buy-In on Game #1. Now the hard part starts in keeping this group motivated not to trade chances because once they go back to old habits, the talent won’t be there to overcome costly breakdowns.

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