Penguins forward Rickard Rakell still learning to play with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin

Rickard Rakell experienced a career milestone Friday.

He took the ice at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., for the first time in his 11-year career.

Of course, he played plenty of games there before. But the first 275 contests he appeared in at that venue came in the black, orange and white (as well as the occasional teal) of the Anaheim Ducks.

Friday’s game was his first as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins as a visitor against the team that drafted him in the first round (No. 30 overall) of the 2011 NHL Draft.

The skilled right winger was held without a point but recorded four shots as the Penguins claimed a lopsided 6-3 victory.

An All-Star with the Ducks, Rakell hasn’t quite offered that level of play in the 10-plus months that he has been a member of the Penguins.

But he hasn’t had to. When the Penguins acquired him at the trade deadline March 22, Rakell was intended to be a complementary piece to the team’s franchise centers, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

And he has largely been just that. In 71 games with the Penguins, he has 46 points (22 goals, 24 assists).

The opportunity to flank Crosby or Malkin and play on a perceived Stanley Cup contender is what largely led the 29-year-old Rakell to re-sign with the Penguins last summer at a thrifty rate of $5 million over six years.

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Rakell said Friday to media that traveled to Anaheim. “There was a lot of excitement just coming here last season … All I want to do is win. I’m giving myself the best chances.”

So far this season, his chances have come while rotating with fellow right winger Bryan Rust between the top line (aka Crosby’s line) and the second line (aka Malkin’s line).

Rakell is the team’s fourth-leading scorer this season with 33 points (18 goals, 15 assists) while appearing in all 52 of the team’s games.

“We’re all just trying to bring something good every game,” Rakell said to media Monday in San Jose. “(Rust) knows what he’s good at. I know what I’m good at. We’re just trying to put ourselves into positions where were can be good but also try to make our linemates better. For us, that’s doing a lot of dirty work. But at the same time, when the chances are there, trying to do our thing and trying to beat guys.”

That attitude has made it an easy decision for Penguins coaches to swap Rakell and Rust between lines as frequently as they have this season.

“They’re very good players,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “They’re just different. Depending on how our team is playing, how certain lines are playing … we’ll make adjustments accordingly. They’re just different players. They bring something different to the lines that they’re on. I anticipated going into this season that we were going to jockey those two guys probably back and forth on Sid’s line and (Malkin’s) line, depending on what we were going to get. We feel very confident that we can mix those guys on a moment’s notice.”

The right-handed Rakell largely has offered everything Penguins management wanted when it swung the deal to bring him in.

At the same time, he still sees room for improvement in having such optimal assignments.

“I feel like I’m developing every day, I’m learning something every day,” Rakell said. “For me, I’m working with myself to take more and more responsibility because that’s when I think I’m playing my best. That’s going to help my team and help them in the long run. They’re getting double coverage a lot of times. If I can bring the puck away from (them) and pass (them) the puck when (they’re) open and just pull players away from them, both of them can be even more dangerous.

“That’s something that I’m working on every day.”

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