Who are the biggest Penguin killers?

Checking out the players who lit up the Penguins

Every summer we check in on the opponents that feast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Here are the top-30 scorers from last season.

As you would expect, it’s a veritable who’s who of offensive talent in the league. David Pastrnak and Nikita Kucherov finished as 2023-24’s top scorers against Pittsburgh, each recording seven points in three games. Kucherov led the NHL in scoring this season, Pastrnak was fifth.

The good news might be that no Islanders appeared on the last. That was a major problem for the Pens in 2022-23 when Brock Nelson and Anders Lee combined for 17 points (in four games a piece) against Pittsburgh. A number of those games turned into painful and costly losses for the Pens.

This season’s NYI for Pittsburgh might have been Detroit. Dylan Larkin’s three-point game back in October powered the Red Wings to a 6-3 win over the Pens. Late in the year Larkin added three more points and Mason Raymond exploded for a four-point night when Detroit rallied back to take the Pens to OT. Pittsburgh would win the game, but the Wings grabbed a crucial extra point in both team’s desperate scramble to the playoffs.

Tyson Foerster was a surprise pop-up and possible new pain in Pittsburgh’s neck. The Flyers’ rookie exploded on the scene this year with a 20-goal campaign and he racked up four of them against the Pens.

Here’s the look of points against the Penguins over the last three seasons, since the NHL went back to a normal schedule.

Lots of teams have trouble against Connor McDavid, but my goodness. The Pens don’t stand a chance against him. Pittsburgh also tends to play wide open and comfortable getting into shootouts with Ottawa, and Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson have been only too happy to oblige and make them pay. Those two being up there is somewhere surprising. It’s not too much of a shock that Chris Kreider has a lot of goals, but only one coming on the power play is a twist that not many would see coming.

And hey, how about some love for the goalies. Here’s the top performing netminders who frustrated Pittsburgh this season (minimum 10 saves).

Unlike the scorers, this list is more variable. The top-10 has appearances by Jake Oettinger and Sergei Bobrovsky, but is otherwise filled with a lot of names that probably had one of the best games on the season against Pittsburgh. Whether that’s up to crediting the goalie for a hot night or on the Pens for shot selection and failing to score is worth a debate.