Penguins' Rickard Rakell looking to regain goal-scoring form after stronger, faster offseason

Cameron Hoover / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Rickard Rakell has shown glimpses of why the Penguins traded with Anaheim for him in February 2022.

In his first full season with the Penguins, Rakell played all 82 games, scoring 28 goals and racking up 32 assists. He often played alongside Sidney Crosby on the top line, and it looked like that might stick.

Last season, though, Rakell bottomed out.

The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Swede only scored 37 points (15 goals, 22 assists) in 70 games, the second-worst points total of his career when playing in at least that many contests behind only his 2014-15 campaign in Anaheim, when he was only 21 years old. Rakell drew the ire of fans when he started the season on a 19-game goalless streak and only had nine points on the season by the time New Year’s Day rolled around.

Rakell sighs when he talks about last season, but that dejection quickly makes way for determination.

“Obviously, I’m really disappointed with the season,” Rakell said. “I thought I played really good at the start of the season, but I just couldn’t get anything going. I thought by the end of the season, together with the whole team, I thought we played really, really good down the stretch. Unfortunately, it was just too late. But that ending we had to last season, I think that’s what we’re hoping we’re going to bring from the start of this year.”

Rakell is known around the locker room for being especially hard on himself, with last season’s low points coming as no exception.

“I know [Rakell] is a proud guy,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He cares about the Penguins, and he wants to be his best. I know he has high expectations for himself. Him and I have had multiple conversations around this subject. ... I think if he just brings a little more execution, some [finishing] more consistently, I think he’s gonna bring what we all expect him to bring.”

“I think we’re always just trying to push each other, encourage each other,” Crosby said. “It’s a long season. There’s a lot of ups and downs. [Rakell’s] pretty hard on himself, so that has something to do with it. But he’s an important part of our team.”

Rakell said he “spent the whole summer” trying to improve his game, specifically citing physicality and quickness. Not scoring the goals he’s accustomed to — and the negative attention it brought — naturally dinged his confidence a bit, so he hopes shoring up his physical attributes can help him skate with more self-assurance.

“Just overall strength. Worked on my speed,” he said. “Hopefully, that can bring some more confidence to my game. When you feel stronger and you feel faster, hopefully you can bring that out onto the ice and feel like you’re more of a threat out there.”

Part of that confidence comes from being back in Pittsburgh with his teammates. Michael Bunting said he’s excited to get on the ice with Rakell and Evgeni Malkin and continue building the chemistry they started when Bunting was traded to the Penguins in the Jake Guentzel deal. That partnership — and the camaraderie of the locker room in general — are important to Rakell finding his footing again.

It’s probably not a coincidence that in a season when Rakell struggled, the team did, too, missing the playoffs for the second straight year.

“Our expectation for [Rakell] is that he’s an impact player for us — more specifically on the offensive side,” Sullivan said. “We know he can score goals. He’s done it for us consistently in the past. When he’s a threat offensively more consistently, I think he helps us win games. That would be the expectation.”

Outside the locker room, though, Rakell also realizes expectations around the league and fan base may have dropped. If anything, that’s just another motivator for Rakell to regain his mojo and get the team back to where it wants to be.

“From the ending of last year to all the work that we put in in the summer, it’s just to prove people wrong, prove to people that you belong, that you want to be part of something good again,” he said. “Obviously, this is all the work that you put in. This is the showcase for it.”