Gretz\u2019s somewhat recent take<\/a> that Rust hasn\u2019t been the best this season at times. It\u2019s been uneven, yet Rust still has managed to put up 15 points in 17 games and his presence and skill has been badly needed for a team that\u2019s gone through injury of some of their top wingers. Rust will have a few choppy shifts but then you look up at the end of the game and he\u2019s probably found the scoresheet and also made a nice play or two along the way.<\/p>\nConnor Dewar, B+: Dewar has been great to start the year. He\u2019s about the ideal fourth line player where you know what you\u2019ll get effort wise and he\u2019s got the hands to pop in some goals when he heats up (four goals). You can put him out for penalty kills and defensive-heavy zone starts and he\u2019ll handle it just fine.<\/p>\n
Rickard Rakell, B: Thought Rakell was OK, kinda similar to Rust in that the points were there (3G+5A in nine games) but sometimes the inputs were not always wonderful. Then Rakell got hurt when a puck hit his hand, can\u2019t do much about that. Decent start, there\u2019s not much to go too crazy about in either direction so we\u2019ll just go with a B and hope he heals up quickly.<\/p>\n
Blake Lizotte, B: Lately it\u2019s been a better grade, it didn\u2019t start that was as much at the beginning of season for Lizotte. Like Dewar, he\u2019s a perfect fourth line player, very capable and is consistently going to give a tremendous effort.<\/p>\n
Noel Acciari, B-: I\u2019ve liked Acciari at times, he can get a bad rap since he\u2019s old and slow but there\u2019s always a place in the lineup for him when he\u2019s healthy due to his physicality and defensive acumen. When the fourth line was at its best this season, Acciari was a big part of it.<\/p>\n
Filip Hallander, C: Hallander was fine doing his Dominik Simon impression on the top line for a handful of games. His skating and play away from the puck has been decent, his ability to score (1G+3A in 13 games) hasn\u2019t provided a lot.<\/p>\n
Tommy Novak, C: His point production has been decent (2G+5A) but he hasn\u2019t made much of an impact. Just kinda guy on the team, which is fine since a team needs those types too. There\u2019s something quiet about Novak where you can go a week or two without really noticing him too much. He\u2019s been fine, but not too much better than that.<\/p>\n
Kris Letang, C: Letang is a difficult player to grade, there\u2019s a lot of mixed bag items to sort through. He\u2019s been on the ice for the most 5v5 goals for among defenders (16) in an offensively slanted role, yet also the most goals against (14). Letang\u2019s skills are eroding with age, which hurts to the eye to see. Yet the team has been effective while he\u2019s been on the PK (yielding only one goal in his 36 minutes). At times he\u2019s been just fine, at others it has been rocky.<\/p>\n
Harrison Brunicke, C-: It\u2019s impressive for a teenage defenseman to be at or near NHL quality at all, but putting that aside the results have only been OK and sometimes less than that. The Pens have to figure out what the best plan to manage him will be for his long-term future, and being a regular NHL player at this point doesn\u2019t quite look like the right spot.<\/p>\n
Ville Koivunen, D+: Koivunen could be a victim of increased expectations after finishing with seven assists in eight games last season. He\u2019s only managed two points in 11 games this year. The effort is there and he\u2019s been going to the net but he hasn\u2019t been rewarded with his first career goal yet.<\/p>\n
Philip Tomasino, D: No goals and one assist in nine games, Tomasino has floated down to the fringes of the lineup. You\u2019d think he would need a strong showing the near future before the team gets healthy again to keep a spot, we haven\u2019t seen it yet.<\/p>\n
The rest have too slight of samples to dig into at this time. Obviously the beginning of Sergei Murashov\u2019s career has been extremely impressive and the sky looks like the limit. Other depth defenders like Matt Dumba, Connor Clifton, Ryan Graves and Caleb Jones have had good and bad moments but mostly survived. Veterans like Kevin Hayes, Danton Heinen and Joona Koppanen have definitely dressed for a few games but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n
Overall, the team must be thrilled with the start. They have the top power play in the NHL, a top-5 penalty kill and some fantastic goaltending performances across the board no matter which of the three netminders that have played. That\u2019s put them in a great spot coming out of the gates and given some life and excitement for the second quarter of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that we\u2019re embedded in the post-Europe trip lull this week, there\u2019s some time to kill. The Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[13449,64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-293618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}