COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sometimes there's an overwhelming sense that things have been going uncharacteristically well. In the Penguins' case, going several weeks without a player getting injured can summon a similar feeling. Sure, Evgeni Malkin has yet to play this season, and Bryan Rust remains sidelined, but since Rust was a late-scratch on November 26, the Penguins haven't lost any players to the injury bug. That is, until Jake Guentzel blocked a shot with his hand in Monday's thwarting of Seattle. Guentzel went on to score twice after the blocked shot, but Mike Sullivan announced Wednesday that he will be out week-to-week with a not so hard to figure out upper-body injury.
Losing Guentzel, who ranks 7th in the NHL with 15 goals and 12th with 27 points, is a big enough blow on its own. Considering he's the third member of the Penguins' top-two lines now out of the lineup, it seems even more detrimental.
For now, Sullivan's solution is to move Evan Rodrigues to the left of Sidney Crosby, and promote Kasperi Kapanen to flank them on the right.
While I think the change is worth a try, if for nothing else to try and get a player going that admitted his recent play has been "terrible", I hesitate to believe Kapanen will be an effective plug-in on the top-line due to many of the issues with his game that I wrote about at the beginning of the season.
Assuming things don't shake out the way Sullivan hopes, Danton Heinen is an enticing option to replace Kapanen.
Heinen has only four goals in his past 22 games after scoring in each of the Penguins' first three games of the season, but a large factor behind that has been his reduced role as the Penguins got players back from injury. Before Guentzel was injured, Heinen had replaced Kapanen on the second-line, but Heinen's 12 and a half minutes of ice-time per game this season only puts him ahead of Drew O'Connor, Brian Boyle, and Dominik Simon.
That figure is far too low for someone that has played as well as Heinen this season.
His 12 points don't jump off the page, but the rate at which he's getting on the scoresheet is toward the top of the team:
- Goals per hour -- 1.34 (2nd on Penguins)
- Primary assists per hour -- 0.76 (7th)
- Secondary assists per hour -- 0.19 (11th)
- Points per hour -- 2.25 (5th)
Heinen is also generating high-quality chances for himself, even though he doesn't shoot nearly as often as some of his teammates. His 12.4 shot attempts per hour is ninth on the Penguins, but the 1.11 expected goals per hour he generates ranks third, only behind Guentzel and Rodrigues, per Evolving-Hockey.com.
On unblocked shot attempts, Heinen's expected shooting percentage is 10.39. That's the only double-digit figure on the Penguins, and it comes as no surprise when you see he's getting to the net and slot area to fire the puck:

HockeyViz.com
Several times I've noted Heinen's ability to handle and shoot the puck in tight spaces, all of which figures to bode well alongside Crosby, one of the most gifted high-danger passers the game has ever seen.
On the other hand, Kapanen frequently struggles to settle the puck, or even get shots through defenders when facing any sort of pressure.
The Penguins as a whole have played very well during Heinen's ice-time. With the British Columbia native on the ice during five-on-five play this season, the Penguins have out-scored the opposition 16-11, taken 58.6% of the shots on goal, 55.8% of the shot attempts, and controlled 61.4% of the expected goals.
Splitting the rink in half, the Penguins' defensive results have been above-average with Heinen on the ice, but their offensive results have been astounding. During his five-on-five ice-time they are scoring 3.56 goals per hour, a mark that is only surpassed by Crosby and Guentzel. The Penguins have the shot quality to back up the frequent scoring, too, as they are generating 3.44 expected goals per hour in that time. This indicates that the scoring hasn't been all that influenced by luck or fluky bounces.
Heinen, as well as his linemates, have been getting plenty of looks in the heart of the slot where the vast majority of goals are scored:

HockeyViz.com
Of course, Heinen shares the ice with four other Penguins skaters, so how much of his on-ice success can he take credit for?
Regularized adjusted plus-minus, or RAPM, is a statistic that aims to isolate a skater's impact toward on-ice goals for, on-ice shot attempts for and against, and on-ice expected goals for and against. The metric isn't flawless by any means, but it's one of the best tools we have available to figure out how players are impacting goals, shots, and chances individually, rather than looking at their raw on-ice results and playing a guessing game as to who is driving what.
Heinen grades out extremely well offensively, as his isolated impact toward even-strength on-ice goal-scoring (GF/60), on-ice shot attempts for (CF/60), and on-ice expected goals for (xGF/60) is well-above league-average:

Evolving-Hockey.com
His impact defensively (xGA/60, CA/60) grades out as roughly average, but that's more than acceptable if he continues to drive goal-scoring and chances at the other end of the rink to such a degree.
The top-line Kapanen experiment has a decent chance of fizzling out rather quickly. If it does, Sullivan has an option that won't just be a passenger, but one that will positively contribute to on-ice success.
Regardless of Heinen playing on the top-line, Ron Hextall's off-season value signing appears to have rekindled the magic he had early on in his career with Boston after a few murky seasons in Anaheim. If the Penguins ever end up getting completely healthy (I know, I know), they will be able to rely on each of their top-three lines to generate chances and score goals consistently, with Heinen being an important part of the equation.