PITTSBURGH, PA – DECEMBER 17: Pittsburgh Penguins Right Wing Bryan Rust (17) celebrates his goal with Pittsburgh Penguins Right Wing Jake Guentzel (59) during the first period in the NHL game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Anaheim Ducks on December 17, 2018, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA. (Photo by Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire)
There have not been a lot of great rookie seasons in the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ recent history. There certainly have not been many impactful rookies since former general manager Jim Rutherford tried to preserve the Stanley Cup dynasty, treating draft picks like skeeball tickets to trade in for better prizes.
In fact, you may need to be sitting down for this: Since the 2015 draft, the prospect who has played the most games for the Penguins is … Dominik Simon.
This season will be the beginning of the rebirth of the Penguins and will include several rookies, so it bears taking a moment to look at the importance they can play in a successful team.
As we expand the scope of important rookie seasons to the breadth of Sidney Crosby’s career beginning in 2005, there were a handful of top rookies who acclimated well to their first opportunities, and they were quite important.
Of course, Crosby was a phenom even as a rookie, scoring 39 goals with 110 points on a terrible team, but he lost the Calder Trophy to Alex Ovechkin, who was much more the media darling.
There have been several rookies who have exploded into the Penguins’ lineup since then.
After all, who could forget 2008 draft pick Alexander Pechurskiy and his glorious EBUG game in January of 2010, when he stopped 12 of 13 shots in a 6-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks?
Sarcasm cast aside, there have been others who barged into the Penguins’ locker room and took a spot, whether coaches were ready to give it or not.
All five were key figures in Stanley Cup glory, too.
Update: Shamefully, we forgot Evgeni Malkin, who won the Calder Trophy in 2006-07. That should have been No. 1.
Top Penguins Rookies
5. Conor Sheary
Undrafted. Small (5-foot-8, 182 pounds). Sheary signed an AHL contract after finishing his collegiate career at UMass-Amherst. He quickly outgrew the AHL and forced his way into the NHL halfway through his second professional season.
Sheary scored only 10 points over 44 games during the 2015-16 regular season, but was a regular in the playoffs, getting ice time beside Crosby as the Penguins marched to the 2016 Stanley Cup championship. Sheary posted (4-6-10) in 23 playoff games, and expectations grew.
Sheary followed his rookie emergence by posting 53 points, with 23 goals in 2016-17.
4. Olli Maatta
Maatta wasn’t even the Penguins’ top first-round pick in the 2012 NHL Draft–that honor belonged to Derrick Pouliot. Instead, Maatta methodically, steadily, and unflappably took a roster spot that no one expected and did so in his first training camp.
Maatta played six seasons for the Penguins. Though his stats were never eye-catching, his poised defense was a necessary component of the 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cup championships. He had a cancerous tumor removed in 2014, shoulder surgery in 2014, and another in 2015. The rocky health battles eventually took their toll, and Maatta’s game regressed, but he’s still in the NHL, providing solid third-pair defense now for the Utah Mammoth.
And who will forget the paparazzi-style photos of the aftereffects of his 2017 Stanley Cup parade celebration?
3. Matt Murray
Two Stanley Cups while still a rookie goaltender. That’s an unbeatable accomplishment, and it was Murray, whose steely-eyed, impenetrable demeanor settled the team in some rough moments during the 2016 Stanley Cup run that he almost exclusively backstopped. He took over in the 2017 Eastern Conference Final and played perhaps the best couple of games in his life, closing out the 2017 Cup in Games 5 and 6.
Murray posted a .937 save in 11 playoff games in 2017, posting three shutouts, too.
Regardless of how Murray’s career has unfolded, or unraveled, over the past handful of years, he was a bedrock foundational piece of those Stanley Cup wins, and his play was extraordinary.
2. Jake Guentzel
The top three are almost impossible to rank ahead of each other. Guentzel was a third-round pick from Nebraska-Omaha, the son of a coach, but small and slow. In his first professional season, he torched the AHL for 42 points in 33 games, and it was very quickly time to give him an NHL shot.
Guentzel scored on his first two shots (take that, Mario!) on Nov. 21, 2016. He took the fanbase and the team by storm, scoring 16 goals with 33 points in 40 regular-season games. He notched a playoff hat trick, and even as his game showed some rookie cracks, he was a much-needed catalyst for a tired team on the 2017 Stanley Cup run.
Guentzel had 13 goals in 25 playoff games, establishing a career-long trend of consistent scoring in the playoffs.
1. Jordan Staal
In the words of former GM Ray Shero, there’s no Stanley Cup without Jordan Staal. Shero was referring to the 2009 championship, but Staal’s breakout party was just a few months after the 2006 NHL Draft, in which the Penguins selected him third overall, ahead of future stars Jonathan Toews and Phil Kessel.
Expectations were that Staal would return to juniors for another season, but like Maatta, his play in training camp demanded a longer look. First, Staal earned a quick NHL look–junior-eligible players can play up to nine games without burning a year of their entry-level contract, but at the end of those nine games, Staal’s play earned him a season-long stay in the NHL.
Not only did he anchor the third line, but he was a monster on the penalty kill. He scored 29 goals, which still stands as his career best, including a league-leading seven shorthanded goals.
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