NEWARK, N.J. — Alex Galchenyuk was the last Pittsburgh Penguins player off the ice after practice Thursday at Prudential Center.

As most of his teammates had left the dressing room to shower and board the team bus, an exhausted Galchenyuk sat down in his stall and began to remove his equipment. He had spent nearly an hour and a half skating.

The reason was simple.

“I know I have to be better,” said Galchenyuk, who still was trying to catch his breath as he spoke with media. “I just come to work every day.”

Through nine games this season, Galchenyuk has three assists. A former 30-goal scorer who was acquired from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for All-Star forward Phil Kessel this past offseason, it’s fair to say Galchenyuk has fallen well short of expectations thus far.

He doesn’t dispute that notion.

“I’m not where I want to be,” he said. “I know I need to be better. And that’s my mindset. Go out there battling, competing and getting my game where it needs to be. And just improving every day and sticking to it. Adversity is part of the season, and I’ve got to find a way to get myself out of it.”

His extra work Thursday did not focus on any specific aspect.

“Everything,” he said. “Every small little detail. Obviously, if the puck went across the goal line, the game would be easier. But at the same time, I can’t just focus on that. I’ve got to focus on every aspect of the game and improve it all.”

Assuming he is in the lineup for Friday’s meeting with the New Jersey Devils, Galchenyuk will appear in his 500th career game. At 25 years old, he will be the first player selected from the 2012 draft, which was in Pittsburgh, to reach that milestone.

“It means a lot, obviously,” said Galchenyuk, who was selected No. 3 overall by the Montreal Canadiens. “Everyone talks about 1,000 games, and that’s halfway. Doing it at a pretty young age. I’m definitely pretty fortunate and blessed to be in this position. It’s going to be special.”

He would have reached that milestone earlier were it not for an undisclosed injury that sidelined him for nine games in October.

“When you miss the amount of time that he’s missed, sometimes it takes a little while to get your conditioning, your time, all of those things,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “The game is fast, and it’s intense. So it takes a little bit of time to adjust. But we believe Alex is a good player. So we’re going to try to put him in positions where he can play to his strengths. As I suggested to Alex and all players that are in his position, it’s not about overthinking things out there and just trusting your instincts and keeping your game simple and being more focused on the process of just playing the game the right way than just trying to score goals or focusing on the outcome or the results. You can get overwhelmed by circumstances if you don’t keep your mindset in the right place. That’s just the details of the game shift to shift.

“If he takes the focus off of scoring goals, and he just tries to focus on making that next play and competing on pucks and being good on the wall and things of that nature, then scoring opportunities will present themselves.”

Since returning to the lineup Oct. 29, Galchenyuk, along with forward Jake Guentzel, leads the team with 19 shots over the past six games.

“He’s had a number of chances,” Sullivan said. “The puck just didn’t go in the net. Eventually, if he keeps getting those type of chances, the puck is going to go in for him.”

Notes: Galchenyuk skated on a third line during practice with Nick Bjugstad and rookie forward Sam Lafferty. The top line included Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, and the second line had Jared McCann centering Dominik Kahun and Dominik Simon. The fourth line remained status quo with Zach Aston-Reese, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Tanev. … Sullivan had no updates on injured forward Patric Hornqvist or Kris Letang other than saying they are progressing in their recoveries.

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