With 1.5 seconds left on the clock in Pittsburgh\u2019s game against Tampa on Thursday (April 2), Egor Chinakhov scored for the second time that night, hitting the 20-goal mark for the first time in his young career.<\/p>\n
Seventeen of those tallies came in just 38 games with the Penguins since being acquired from Columbus at the New Year. Chinakhov has 16 points over his last 15 games, and 30 points in black and gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust fresh start,\u201d Chinakhov said, when asked what is working well here. \u201cI love to play here. Just try to, every time I go out, enjoy the games, enjoy the practices. Just enjoy everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas said there were a lot of discussions with Don Waddell, in that same role for Columbus, about the 2020 first-round pick, who dealt with injuries and misunderstandings with former head coach Dean Evason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn-division trades aren’t always the easiest to do for a number of reasons, especially when it’s a young player with potential that maybe isn’t getting opportunity,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cWe just felt that it was a player that obviously, had a falling out with the previous coaching staff in Columbus. That stuff happens with every team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought at his age (25), with his speed, with his offensive ability… but probably more than that, we felt as we dug into it, he also is extremely responsible defensively. We just thought that with our group that we have, that he could play a really key role.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been remarkable to watch Chinakhov take advantage of his opportunity here in Pittsburgh, helping the Penguins fight to make the playoffs in a year where most people had written them off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s special, these ones, when you race to the playoffs,\u201d Chinakhov said.<\/p>\n
From the moment he arrived, Chinakhov\u2019s shot stood out. He said growing up in Russia, whenever he had free time, he would go outside and work on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, the release, it’s crazy,\u201d Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse said with a smile. \u201cIt’s unique. I kind of find myself laughing some days in practice, watching him shoot pucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think every one of us wishes we had that shot,\u201d Bryan Rust added. \u201cIt’s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way it comes off Chinakhov\u2019s blade is so quick, and he doesn\u2019t need much time and space to unleash an absolute howitzer. The accuracy is also impressive, as evidenced by the perfectly placed backhand that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy, one of the league’s best goaltenders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 1.5 seconds left on the clock in Pittsburgh\u2019s game against Tampa on Thursday (April 2), Egor Chinakhov…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5113],"tags":[5,4,118,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-539085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-penguins","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","13":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116342690386685452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}