NEW YORK -- When Louis Domingue returned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in March after recovering from his foot injury in Pittsburgh, the impact he had was immediately apparent.
Domingue is a goaltender who likes to play the puck, and he makes life a little easier for the defensemen in front of him.
"We're a different team," Wilkes-Barre defenseman Will Reilly told me of Domingue's impact at the time. "I think the biggest thing -- you know, apart from obviously he's an NHL goaltender -- but just him playing the puck. It helps it helps our whole team really, so much. I think that's pretty evident. I feel like we're a lot better at breaking the puck out. And he's really good at communicating back there for a goalie."
Domingue's experience in Pittsburgh this season has been brief -- Just two regular-season games, and his fantastic 17-save relief performance in the Penguins' triple-overtime Game 1 win on Tuesday.
In that brief time, the defensemen up in Pittsburgh have already noticed the same thing that the defensemen in Wilkes-Barre have.
"He definitely likes to play the puck a lot," Mike Matheson said or Domingue after Thursday's morning skate. "So that I think is a huge advantage for sure. He's really good at it. And it can sometimes take the load off the defensemen on on breakouts and things like that."
Occasionally, Domingue coming out to play the puck can be a little risky, and it might get your heart racing. There were some times in Wilkes-Barre where coach J.D. Forrest would tell me he thought Domingue got a "little adventurous" with the puck, which is a nice-sounding way to put it. But the benefits of Domingue's puck-handling far outweigh those kinds of moments,
Domingue is also a right-catching goaltender, which is somewhat of a rarity in the NHL these days. Of the 119 goaltenders to appear in at least one regular-season game this year, only seven catch with their right hand. Right-catching goaltenders aren't quite so rare in the Penguins' organization, though. In addition to Domingue, current backup Alex D'Orio catches with his right hand, as does WHL prospect Taylor Gauthier.
Mike Sullivan said that whether the goaltender catches with their right or left doesn't have any real impact on anything the team does strategically. Matheson said that it doesn't change much for them, other than knowing that right-catching goaltenders will often have more shots get deflected into the left side of the ice, because that's the side their blocker is on. For opposing shooters though, there's a difference when it comes to right-catching vs. left.
"It's a lot different for sure," Matheson said. "Just the stick positioning, as a left-hander against a left-catching goalie, you can sometimes have that left side over the blocker or just through that stick if they can't quite quite get the blocker down. That's a complete opposite when it's the other way around. There's definitely a big difference shooting on goalies that are the opposite-catching hand."
With Casey DeSmith and Tristan Jarry sidelined on a day-to-day basis still, it's Domingue's net for the time being.
Matheson was asked if Domingue's performance showed that he's a little better than people realize, and Matheson's answer showed the confidence that the team has in Domingue moving forward.
"Well, I think we realized that," Matheson said. "To say that we were surprised by that? I don't think so. I think it was impressive, for sure. But we have full confidence in his ability."
The Penguins have also seen the confidence that Domingue has in himself, and that's something that benefits both Domingue and his teammates.
"He's a confident player," Sullivan said. "You know, he has a little swagger to him. I think that serves him well. It's such an important aspect, I think, of being not only an athlete, but in particular a goalie. He has a confidence about him, he believes in his game. I think you can see it in his body language. I think it's contagious with our group. Our guys know him well enough. He's played a lot of games in this league. He's an NHL goaltender. He's a very capable guy, but he has a confidence about him that I think serves him really well."
MORE FROM THE SKATE
• It was an optional skate. Participants were Domingue, D'Orio, Mark Friedman, Nathan Beaulieu, Chad Ruhwedel, Brian Dumoulin, Marcus Pettersson, Evgeni Malkin and Jason Zucker.
• Sullivan said that Zucker would be a game-time decision for Game 2. Zucker looked to be moving pretty well in the skates the last three days, my guess would be that he's in.
• Sullivan said that Rickard Rakell and DeSmith are definitely out for Game 2. They're both day-to-day, they didn't skate on Thursday. Jarry has still yet to skate at all.
• Asked if it was possible one of DeSmith or Jarry are available for Game 3, Sullivan said, "We're not even thinking about Game 3 right now."
• The Penguins activated defenseman Nathan Beaulieu off of long-term injured reserve following the skate. With no salary cap in playoffs, there was no reason to keep Beaulieu on any longer, so this doesn't necessarily mean that he'll play. But it would sure be interesting to see what he'd add if he does play, given the physical nature of his game.