It only took two games for Phil Kessel to break through with the kind of play the Pittsburgh Penguins acquired him to make.*
On Saturday night against the Arizona Coyotes, Shane Doan had the puck at center ice when Phil Kessel, who doesn’t hustle or play defense, stripped the puck. Chris Kunitz ran a little interference to give Kessel a 1-on-1 against Oliver Ekman-Larsson. That’s when Kessel snapped his trademark wrister past goalie Mike Smith – otherwise brilliant in the game, by the way – for his first goal as a Penguin.
The unassisted goal came 17 seconds after Arizona took a 1-0 lead on a Tobias Rieder goal in the second. *
Alas, Jordan Martinook scored at 7:29 of the second, and Smith carried the Coyotes to a 2-1 win over the Penguins.
So Kessel breaks through with his first goal. Sidney Crosby, first to celebrate with him, has been held without a point or a shot on goal in the first two games of the season.
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