Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Johnston is now tinkering with the Phil Kessel–Sidney Crosby experiment.
After tumbling to 3-4-0 and mustering just a single goal in Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars, Johnston split up what was supposed to be the East’s most dangerous duo at practice Friday.
The newly acquired Kessel (two goals, one assist) skated alongside Evegeni Malkin (a club-high five points) and Sergei Plotnikov, while Crosby centred and Patric Hornqvist and Pascal Dupuis.
Crosby has gone pointless in six out of seven games this season, playing the bulk of his minutes with Kessel and Kunitz. Malkin has been centring Hornqvist and David Perron.
The Penguins’ offence, as usual, looked great on paper heading into the 2015-16 campaign but they do not have a scorer that cracks the NHL’s top 50.
“We have to look at what works well together,” Johnston told reporters after the skate. “Right now we’re not locked into anything.”
Pittsburgh’s offence has scored just 1.57 goals per game and ranks last in the Eastern Conference.
The Penguins travel to Nashville Saturday to take on the Predators, who have the best defence in the Western Conference, averaging just two goals allowed per game.
Perron, who has not registered a point in 19 consecutive regular-season games dating back to last spring, spoke to Seth Rorabaugh of the Post-Gazette about his demotion from the top six.
“It’s tough because you want to produce,” Perron said Friday. “Only two years ago, I almost had 30 goals there. So you want to get back to that level and you feel you can do it.
“I feel really like I’m moving a lot more on the ice, backchecking, forechecking, doing the little things like that. Hopefully it’s going to come around.”
