In the blink of an eye, Pittsburgh Penguins rookie Jake Guentzel flipped roles from the feel-good story of the playoffs to a phenom with mounting pressure to stay hot.
The Penguins raced out to a 2-0 lead over the Nashville Predators in the Stanley Cup Final, making it appear as if they were on the fast track to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin's second straight Cup, and the third of their careers. Guentzel scored two goals in Game 2, pushing his playoff total to 12, just two shy of Dino Ciccarelli's rookie playoff goal-scoring record. Guentzel also leads the playoffs with five game-winning goals. But the success of Pittsburgh's 22-year-old winger was mostly a side note in the Cup conversation, which still revolved around the chance Crosby and Malkin had to solidify their legacies.
All that talk ended when the series shifted to Nashville.
Guentzel scored his 13th playoff goal in Game 3, but the Penguins were blown out 5-1 by the Preds, who seemed to feast off the atmosphere of their home arena. In Game 4, Nashville held the former third-round pick off the board entirely in a 4-1 victory that knotted the series at two games apiece.
Throughout the second half of the regular season and playoffs, Pittsburgh has come to count on the first-year winger to be a top producer. Now with the series tied, chasing Ciccarelli's record becomes irrelevant. Now the spotlight is on Guentzel to continue scoring if the Penguins are going to have a chance to beat the possession-dominating Predators.
Can Pittsburgh set up its young offensive dynamo in a position to succeed during the rest of the Cup Final? The answer lies in how Guentzel got here.
Luck, skill or both?
One thing should be clear about the rise of Jake Guentzel: His playoff success is no fluke.
While he wasn't a first or second overall pick like Crosby and Malkin, the slender, baby-faced sniper has always been a gifted offensive player. In his third year of NCAA hockey at Nebraska-Omaha, Guentzel recorded 19 goals and 46 points in just 35 games.
Prior to the beginning of this season, ESPN Insider Corey Pronman had this to say about Guentzel: "He shows flashes of the top-level skill and vision that allows him to be a dangerous offensive force and create from the perimeter."
Guentzel adapted incredibly quickly to the AHL game, potting 21 goals in just 33 games to begin this season. To put his success in context, he finished the season tied for the No. 37 spot in goals, despite playing fewer than half the games. Naturally, Guentzel earned a call-up from Wilkes-Barre to Pittsburgh.
The Penguins' winger carried over his penchant for finding the back of the net to the NHL level, and did it in impressive fashion during the regular season. He scored 16 goals in 40 games -- which is on pace for 30-plus goals in a full season -- and notched 15 of his goals at even strength. He topped Pittsburgh's roster in 5-on-5 goals per 60 minutes, even beating out Crosby, who led the NHL in overall goals.
A major factor in his regular-season production was getting tabbed to play alongside Crosby, but Guentzel still scored eight of his 15 even-strength goals while playing on different lines.
So he's been a goal scorer at every level, with or without the greatest center on Earth. However, there has been some luck at play in the playoffs. To be sure, terrific scorers usually have above-average shooting percentages, but Guentzel's playoff numbers look like something out of the NBA.
His 16 regular-season goals came on just 81 shots, good for a 19.8 shooting percentage. You would have expected that number to fall when the Penguins faced top-notch goalies like Sergei Bobrovsky, Braden Holtby, Craig Anderson and Pekka Rinne. Instead he's scored on 29.5 percent of his shots (13 goals on 44 shots), which would be a little below average for a 3-point shooter in basketball.
There is no way to accurately predict whether Guentzel will score in the final two or three games of this series, but it seems impossible -- even in a tiny sample like the Stanley Cup playoffs -- that any player could keep scoring on one of every three shots.
The overall takeaway from his high shooting percentage: The Penguins need to find ways to create more shots for Guentzel.
Usage
With 47 shots, Guentzel ranks 14th among all players in total shots this postseason, just behind Rickard Rakell (48), who achieved his total in eight fewer games, and the trio of Mike Hoffman, Derick Brassard and Alex Ovechkin, all of whom played at least four fewer games.
Part of the explanation for Guentzel's low shot totals is that he hasn't seen as much power-play ice time as some of Pittsburgh's other top stars. Phil Kessel has been on the ice for a total of 141 shot attempts by the Pens in 76 minutes of power-play time, while Guentzel has seen just 50 minutes and been on ice for 81 attempts. The Penguins are so loaded with talent on the power play that it's hard to seek more ice time for Guentzel, but coach Mike Sullivan may put an emphasis on getting his young shooter more chances with the puck during the man advantage.
A major portion of Guentzel's success has been attributed to playing with Crosby -- and clearly there is no better playmaker in the game than the Pens' captain -- but moving Guentzel away from Crosby at times may help unlock more shot attempts.
Sullivan has routinely deployed Crosby and Guentzel against the opposing team's key superstars during the playoffs. The biggest example was against the Ottawa Senators, when Crosby faced off with the league's best defenseman, Erik Karlsson, far more than any other Penguins center.
With a dinged-up defensive unit, Crosby and Guentzel have been pinned in their own zone more often than usual, being outshot 155-121 while on the ice together in the playoffs. So while Guentzel has been opportunistic, the pair's struggles to control the puck have resulted in fewer chances to score.
During 127 minutes played with Malkin during the regular season, Guentzel produced five goals and nine points; overall, when the two were on the ice together, the Penguins had 51.4 percent of the shot attempts, and scored 61.9 percent of the goals, according to Hockey Analysis.
It's possible that a change in lines could improve Guentzel's shot-per-game totals and therefore improve the likelihood of him continuing his blazing playoff scoring streak.
Sullivan has to do everything he can to keep his phenom going. Otherwise, rather than being an intriguing side note in Cup Final history, Guentzel's magical run might be forgotten altogether.