Penguins forward Jason Zucker wants to prove he can still 'play at a high level'

Playing his first game at PPG Paints Arena in roughly four months, Jason Zucker was in a different position.

On the bench.

That is to say he actually was sitting on the bench during the Penguins’ preseason-opening 3-2 overtime victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday afternoon.

During the Penguins’ first-round loss to the New York Rangers in the playoffs in May, the veteran winger was so battered by a lingering core muscle injury, he was forced to sit on an elevated chair near the runway, as opposed to the bench, in between shifts.

Hindered by the ailment, Zucker, typically a regular presence among the team’s top-six forwards, was limited to a bottom-six role in the series, appearing in only five games and contributing two assists.

“Every time you come back to the bench, you’re thinking about something, where to sit,” Zucker said. “Just trying to get comfortable. Worrying about that stuff makes it hard to worry about the game, too. It was nice to just be able to play again and not worry about it.”

Zucker offered a pretty nice highlight in Sunday’s game when he scored the winning goal.

The score came during a furious scramble during three-on-three play. After Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson was denied on a backhander near the crease, Zucker claimed the rebound on the left wing wall and curled around the offensive zone to the slot with the puck on his backhand. Fending off Blue Jackets defenseman David Jiricek, Zucker attacked the net, stumbled and jabbed a forehand shot through goaltender Nolan Lalonde’s legs.

“He has a lot of jump,” Penguins assistant coach Mike Vellucci said. “The ice wasn’t great there, but you saw, even in the overtime there, he got a step on the (defender). His speed looks great. He worked hard this summer. He’s had a good camp so far. I was really happy for him to get that goal there in overtime. It shows that he put the work in.”

Despite that personal triumph, Zucker offered a pretty harsh assessment of his overall play.

“I felt terrible,” Zucker said. “But that’s the preseason. That’s the way it goes. I felt like I didn’t make a lot of the plays that I should have. But it’s the way it goes. We’re working through it. It’s Game 1. That’s why we play preseason.”

Primarily skating on the top line and top power-play unit in a lineup limited for a preseason contest, Zucker logged 19 minutes, 51 seconds of ice time on 20 shifts and recorded four shots on six attempts.

Zucker had a handful of quality chances during regulation but could not convert. One chance came at 11:13 of the third period when he and linemate Kasperi Kapanen generated a two-on-none rush, only to have Zucker’s forehand shot fended off by Lalonde.

“I’ve got to start getting the hands on some of those plays going,” Zucker said. “I should have made a lot more than I did.”

Last season’s core muscle injury, which developed sometime in November, required surgery in January and never fully healed, hindering Zucker, once a steady 20-goal threat, for the remainder of the campaign.

At the dawn of this season, Zucker professes no issues with the ailments that have plagued him for much of his tenure with the Penguins.

“I feel good,” Zucker said. “It’s good to be healthy. It feels good to be back out there, not worry about my skating. It feels good.”

The injury involved a groin muscle and had a considerable effect on Zucker’s skating, typically one of his most prominent assets as an NHLer.

“I basically had to learn how to skate again, essentially, in the sense that I couldn’t skate my normal way. So I was trying to compensate in different ways. That made me have to change my game and start thinking differently because I couldn’t skate the way I wanted to. It starts out physically and (turns mental).”

Part of that mental impediment was fear of aggravating the ailment.

“It felt like no matter what I did, it was going to go again at some point,” Zucker said. “That’s kind of the feeling for the whole year.”

The whole time Zucker has been a member of the Penguins has been largely underwhelming.

Former Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford acquired Zucker from the Minnesota Wild via trade in February 2020 for a fairly heavy price that included promising defensive prospect Calen Addison and a first-round pick in the 2021 draft.

Upon arrival, Zucker looked like an immediate fit. Replacing the injured Jake Guentzel on the top line alongside Sidney Crosby, Zucker produced an efficient 12 points (six goals, six assists) in 15 games.

Then, the NHL, to say nothing of the entire world, essentially shut down roughly a month after Zucker arrived.

“The whole (covid-19) thing, it threw off everybody,” Zucker said. “I could have done a better job myself. But it throws off your training. It throws off everything. Shortened seasons, trying to get the rhythm of things, things of that sort. For me, last year was like the first normal year again then, obviously, it was just all injuries. It made it tough.

Zucker labored through the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 campaign. A gruesome left leg injury suffered during a road game against the Washington Capitals forced him to miss 18 games of a 56-game season.

Then in 2021-22, his various maladies allowed him to play in only 41 games (half of an 82-game schedule), scoring a mere 17 points (eight goals, nine assists).

With the benefit of health, Zucker has a pretty specific goal in mind for this season.

“It’s about essentially proving myself again,” Zucker said. “That I can still play at this level, still play at a high level. I know I can. It’s just a matter of being healthy and doing it. I haven’t felt this good in a couple of years now.”

Beyond his on-ice concerns, the business side of hockey is also key for Zucker in 2022-23. He is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in the 2023 offseason.

“Yeah, it’s always part of your mind,” Zucker said. “For me, it’s a contract year. A year that I can kind of prove that I haven’t lost a step. That I’m not falling behind. Injuries are part of the game. Unfortunately, my last two years have been pretty injury-ridden. So for me, I just want to prove that I can still play the game and play at a high level. I’m very confident that I can do that. It’s just a matter of going out and doing it now.”