PHILADELPHIA -- Jason Zucker is well aware of all that went wrong during the Penguins' season-opening loss to the Flyers Wednesday evening.
Of the grievous defensive lapses that led directly to some of the six goals Philadelphia scored, and how the Penguins have to exorcise such breakdowns from their game.
But he also recognizes that the opener represented just 1/56th of the Penguins' season, which means they have ample time to recover from that defeat.
Perhaps more importantly, Zucker didn't see anything in that game that constituted a problem the Penguins shouldn't be able to correct.
Mistakes? Absolutely. The video the Penguins went over Thursday showed plenty of them.
But there was nothing Zucker believes is a threat to scuttle their season.
"Overall, there were no huge red flags for me," he said Thursday. "It was Game 1. Obviously, we're going to do our best to not let this slip and just say, 'Aw, well, it's only Game 5.' We don't want to be in that scenario, either. But after one game, I don't think it's anything to get too far in over our heads about."
If the Penguins are to have a successful season -- and some in the organization stubbornly cling to the idea that means winning another Stanley Cup -- they are going to need steady production from their top two lines, including the one on which Zucker is deployed.
He mans the left side with Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust. The unit has not been together for long -- remember, the Penguins acquired Zucker from Minnesota only a month before the NHL suspended operations last March because of the pandemic -- but Zucker believes it has the potential to become a significant force once the guys on its have time to mesh.
"You have to work on it," he said. "You have to work hard on it, for sure. I think it will come quick."
Part of the reason is that he believes the no-frills style he and Rust play meshes nicely with Malkin's inclination to hold onto pucks as long as possible, which maximizes the time plays have to develop.
"Bryan and I keep our games pretty simple," Zucker said. "Pretty downhill, north-south players. That helps a lot, with us and being able to let (Malkin) have his creativity and basically do what he wants. ... Letting him have his creativity will help us build our game, and our system, to where we want it to be as a line.
"(Malkin) is so dangerous when he holds onto the puck as long as he does, because it's so hard to defend," Zucker said. "When passes are made early, it allows defenders to read off those plays very well and create situations for pressure for their defensemen.
"When a centerman carries the puck to the middle of the ice, holds onto the puck as long as he can, those defensemen either have to go with the winger, (Rust) or myself, or they have to jump on (Malkin), and he's good enough to make those plays by them. ... That's where, a lot of the time, defensemen end up in sort of a no-man's land when he has the puck because he's just so good at making those plays."
Although no one on the line made it onto the scoresheet in the opener and the group had some obvious failings, Zucker feels there is reason for optimism about its future.
"It's a work-in-progress, for sure, but I like some of the things we did," he said. "I think we can be a little sharper in some other areas. There were a few wall plays I could have been better at that would have given us some better situations, coming out of our defensive zone.
"I think we showed some flashes of some really good hockey in playing down low, moving pucks quickly to guys who were in the pocket, in soft areas, and creating some plays that way. ... We have to keep going with that. I think that will be big for us.
"I'm not happy, necessarily, with exactly where we ended up, but at the same time, I think it was a good start for us to build off of."
Zucker, 28, acknowledged that he sets statistical objectives for himself before each season -- "Those goals can have a huge impact on the way we play and keep striving to get better," he said -- and while he declined to divulge his for 2020-21, he agreed that it's not unrealistic to think that he could scores goals at, or above, his pace from 2017-18, when he got a career-high 33 in 82 games.
Part of the reason for his optimism is that he thrived that season while playing on a line with Mikael Granlund, whose style is not unlike that of Malkin.
"He definitely held onto the puck a lot," Zucker said, noting that Granlund was not a center, but rather played on the wing opposite him with the Wild. "It's a special talent to do that. It's really hard to do. But he had that talent. He was able to do it, and he did it very well.
"Granlund and i ended up with some great chemistry. The year I scored 33, a lot of that was Mikael Granlund making some unbelievable plays."
The kind he is confident Malkin will make more than a few times during the season that got a sour start Wednesday.