Valtteri Puustinen lit up the Pittsburgh Penguins scoresheet immediately following his call-up in December. The Penguins' 2019 seventh-round pick scored seven points (1G-6A) and 21 shots on goal in his first ten games at the NHL level this season.
The Penguins moved Puustinen to the third line and removed him from the top power play following the Christmas break. Puustinen has been held off the scoresheet in his last nine games and has shot with much less frequency (11 SOG).
Following a stretch of games where he averaged just over seven minutes of ice time during this drought, Puustinen's usage has started climbing back to over nine minutes per game. Part of this could be due to his impressive underlying numbers with Lars Eller.
Puustinen and Eller have shared the ice for 86 minutes at 5v5 and, according to Natural Stat Trick, have 63.6% of the expected goals in that time, outscoring opponents 6-3.
Those figures are an improvement from when Puustinen played with Evgeni Malkin. In 67 minutes at 5v5, Puustinen and Malkin had 58.4% of the expected goals and outscored opponents 3-2 (Natural Stat Trick).
As of now, Puustinen continues to get opportunities at the NHL level. He will need to start finding the scoresheet again, but as Mike Sullivan often discusses, the "process" is there for Puustinen to be successful at the game's top level.
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