Penguins Update: The Sid ‘n’ Jake Show

During the Penguins’ back-to-back wins over Arizona and Montreal this week, the dynamic duo of Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel combined for five of our seven non-shootout goals. Jake potted a pair on Tuesday night to lead us to a 4-2 victory over the Coyotes. Wednesday night it was a Sid ‘n’ Jake Oreo, with the former notching our game-opening and game-tying “cookies” (with a shootout tally for good measure) while the latter provided the crème in the middle.

All in a day’s work for the black-and-gold version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

A third of the way through the season, they’ve produced some truly remarkable numbers. Sid (17 goals) and Jake (13) have combined for 30 of the team’s 82 non-shootout goals…an eye-popping 37 percent of our output. Add in injured sidekick Bryan Rust’s 10 goals? The line has accounted for a whopping 57 percent of our production.

Crosby and Guentzel, in particular, have been remarkably consistent. The former has tallied points in 22 of our 28 games to date, the latter 23 of 28.

Extraordinary.

I’ve been paying closer attention to Sid this season. The more I watch him, the more in awe I become. I’ve always marveled at his ability to make incredibly accurate passes through traffic, both on the forehand and backhand. Unlike so many highly skilled players, he doesn’t shy away from the doing the not-so-glamorous tasks, be it backchecking with vigor or battling for loose pucks along the boards. His commitment, dedication and compete level are exceptional.

“How I like to describe Sid is he’s a skilled grinder — the best skilled grinder ever, basically,” former Pen and current ESPN analyst Dominic Moore told Shayna Goodman of The Athletic. “He thrives on contact, he thrives on playing in tight areas, he thrives on playing with guys on his back in the corners, protecting the puck in the hard areas. We’ve all seen him spin off bigger, stronger players, kind of absorb the contact, take it, break free and make plays happen time and time again over the years.”

However, it’s his attention to the little things, the details, not to mention his on-awareness that’s really caught my eye. Sid seems to anticipate every play and is almost always exactly where he needs to be on the ice. He reminds me very much of former Pens great and Hall-of-Famer Ron Francis in that regard.

At age 36, he’s showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, he’s roughly on a 50-goal pace.

Again, extraordinary.

Jake, too, has really impressed me this season, especially of late. He’s just so crafty and clever and, like Sid, sees the ice extremely well. He isn’t the fastest guy on the ice and he sure isn’t the biggest, generously listed at 5’11” and 180 pounds. But my word, what a battler.

To quote Mark Twain, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Again, like Sid, Jake goes to the dirty areas and isn’t afraid to absorb punishment to score a goal. His hand-eye coordination is off the charts…when it comes to scoring on tip-ins and deflections he’s the best I’ve seen this side of ex-Pen Patric Hornqvist.

Thanks to his outstanding on-ice vision, he’s an excellent passer too. To the degree I thought (and still think) Jake might make a good quarterback for the power play.

The Pens obviously need to be more than a two-man team if they’re going to make the playoffs. But if Sid and Jake continue to produce the way they have, they just might drag us into the postseason in spite of ourselves.

Jars ‘n’ Ned, Too

Following a tough stretch back in October, culminating in a disheartening come-from-in-front loss to Anaheim on home ice, goalie Tristan Jarry took full responsibility for his shaky play.

“You never want to lose; you play the game to win,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve been giving the guys enough (of a) chance to win every night. Obviously, I need to be better, and I think that’s the bottom line.”

Since then, he’s been oh-so-good to his word. Over his past 14 games he’s posted a stingy 2.28 goals against average and .928 save percentage while backstopping the Pens to a 7-5-2 record. He’s, indeed, given his offensively challenged team a chance to win virtually every night while flashing the form that made him a two-time all-star game selection.

Ditto backup Alex Nedeljkovic. Man, has this guy been a revelation. Signed over the summer by Kyle Dubas on a one-year, prove-it deal for $1.5 million following a lost season with the Red Wings, “Ned” is flashing the form he displayed as a rookie with Carolina in 2020-21, when he paced the league in goals against average and save percentage.

In six starts for the black-and-gold, the cat-quick netminder has posted some mind-boggling numbers, including a 2.29 goals against average, a .935 save percentage and a quality starts percentage of .833.

Whatever our issues have been, goaltending most assuredly isn’t one of ‘em.