On Wednesday, I penned a piece talking about the hot start that the Pittsburgh Penguins were on. At the time, they had just won a decisive 5-1 game over Vancouver at home, and had improved to 5-2-0 to open their year.
Their early season success can be attributed to a lot of things. They are getting a key amount of depth scoring, their free agent signings are all looking like bargains right now, and they are getting arguably top-five goaltending from the tandem of Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs.
But above all, it’s just so surprising. Only the most optimistic Penguins fan could have seen this good of a start coming.
The hockey season is quite long, though, and seven-game stretches like this (especially in October) can fade away in a hurry. I mean, look at how little a horrid first month has mattered for Edmonton each of the last two years. It can just as easily go the other way.
If Dan Muse and this new-look Penguins team were going to embark on a mission to show the NHL that they might actually mean business, a meeting with the Florida Panthers down in Sunrise was going to go a long way.
Florida is missing several key pieces from their roster. Captain Aleksander Barkov is out for pretty much the entire regular season, and the ultimate wrecking ball that is Matthew Tkachuk is also out for months to open the year.Additional injuries include forwards Tomas Nosek and Noah Gregor, as well as defenseman Dmitry Kulikov.
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Fifth Avenue Sports 