Mike Sullivan said after Friday's morning skate that he thought Valtteri Puustinen "has a game that could play up and down the lineup."
"I think when you look at Puusty's game, his greatest strengths are his offensive instincts, his ability to finish," Sullivan said. "He can really shoot the puck. For me that's the area of the game where I think Puusty excels. If and when we do put him in the lineup, we're going to try to put him in a position where he can play to those strengths."
That "if and when" ended up being that very night.
When the Penguins took the ice for warmups ahead of their game against the Golden Knights at PPG Paints Arena, Puustinen led the way for the customary solo rookie lap:
"Welcome to the NHL, Valtteri Puustinen."
Puustinen showed that he's capable of playing at this level in the Penguins' 5-2 victory.
Puustinen debuted on the Penguins' third line, alongside Brock McGinn and Jeff Carter. It was early in the second period when that trio teamed up for a goal, earning Puustinen his first NHL point.
Puustinen sprung McGinn on a breakaway with a pass to center ice. Vegas goaltender Laurent Brossoit stopped McGinn on the breakaway, but lost track of the puck underneath his pads. Carter followed through and knocked in the loose puck in the crease:
With that assist, Puustinen, the Penguins' 2019 seventh-round pick, became just the fifth player drafted by the Penguins in the seventh round or later to record a point in his NHL debut with the Penguins – and first to do so in 18 years. He joined Matt Hussey (one goal on March 16, 2004), Tom Kostopoulos (one goal on Dec. 29, 2001), Pat Neaton (one goal on Nov. 16, 1993) and Mitch Lamoureux (one assist on Oct. 4, 1983). It's not exactly elite company, but it's a testament to how rare it is for the Penguins to have such a late-round pick fit in so early.
Carter said that he spoke with Puustinen before the game about things like faceoff plays, adding that it's a "little tough" because of Puustinen's challenges with English.
"He's such a smart player," Carter said. "I didn't know a whole lot about him going into tonight. I saw a little bit in training camp, that was about it. You could tell that he's just a smart player. He reads the game really well. I was very impressed with him tonight. I thought he had a really good game. It's not easy to come in your first NHL game, nerves and whatnot. But I thought he played a heck of a game for us. He was making plays. He was hard on pucks. He skated on pucks. I think he did a lot of good things."
Puustinen's hockey IQ and vision are regular points of praise from members of the Penguins' organization. In a conversation I had with director of player development Scott Young earlier this week, Young spoke of how Puustinen "sees the ice and he knows before he gets the puck what his options are and where his next play is."
Mark Friedman, who got to see even more of Puustinen during Friedman's recent conditioning stint with Wilkes-Barre, called Puustinen a "heck of a player" and said that Puustinen has "so much skill, and he thinks the game really well."
Where we really got to see Puustinen's offensive instincts and skill came on the power play, though. With Kasperi Kapanen a healthy scratch, Puustinen was added to the second power play unit, joining Marcus Pettersson, Danton Heinen, Evan Rodrigues and Carter.
Puustinen's been on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's top power play unit all season, and seeing him unleash ridiculous one-timers from the left faceoff circle is a regular occurrence when Wilkes-Barre is on the man advantage this season:
He unleashed one of those hard one-timers late into the Penguins' first power play opportunity, an attempt that was blocked by Alex Pietrangelo.
Puustinen was mostly deployed in the bumper position when out there with the second unit, but he also showed a strong acumen for going to the net-front and looking for rebounds or redirects. He's a smaller guy, at 5 foot 9, but as Young told me earlier this week, that doesn't mean that Puustinen can't be successful in those kinds of battle areas.
"He's not a small player that doesn't engage in battles," Young said. "He knows how to go in and win a battle. He's not going to run you over, but he'll go win the puck. He's got a great shot. A really good playmaker. He looks to me like he could play with our high-skilled players."
As Puustinen got more comfortable navigating the language barrier in the Wilkes-Barre locker room over the course of the season, more of his personality came out. He earned a reputation as a real funny guy in the locker room, even if he needed to quickly turn to one of his Finnish teammates at times for some help translating a punchline. Bryan Rust said that right now Puustinen seems to be a "quiet kid" in Pittsburgh's room, "still trying to feel it out."
There are some things that transcend what language barrier remains, though.
"His enthusiasm is contagious," Sullivan said of Puustinen. "He was so excited to play his first NHL game, and just to see that raw emotion for me is so great. I think when you get to know Puusty he's a really likable kid. I think his teammates really like him. They couldn't be happier for him, as well as his coaching staff. I thought he had a real solid game."
