Penguins’ player grades: Patric Hornqvist

After a long layoff because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Penguins are finally ready to begin the Stanley Cup playoffs. They’ll do so against the Montreal Canadiens in Toronto. Which is exactly the way everybody had predicted it would go many months ago. Before Game 1 of a best-of-5 series, The Athletic wraps its of grades for players with Patric Hornqvist.

He wasn’t quite finished. Sure looked like he was struggling toward that finish line, though. And when the Penguins rolled lines for the first time during training camp, Patric Hornqvist’s placement — on the right side of the third line — appeared to confirm that coaches just might have agreed with onlookers that a fierce warrior of a winger was not anything close to what he had once been.

So, let’s think back upon what Hornqvist was up until two years ago.

Hornqvist was a special, impactful forward. What he lacked as a skater, he more than made up for by bringing a physicality, tenacity and — no use in sugarcoating it — high-dosage prickishness.

He was, and remains, what elder hockey fans might fondly recall as a throwback to days when wingers went to the so-called dirty areas and wielded sticks as weapons as much as tools. And a player with such qualities has especially won fans in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are into their fourth decade of trying to supplement all-time scorers with complementary teammates who, ideally, would be similar to Hornqvist.

Except, players like Hornqvist are as difficult to find as their success is easy to oversimplify.

It’s a nice thought that every forward could treat every shift like a battlefield charge, plant himself near the net, absorb punishment and create havoc for opposing defensemen and goaltenders.

It’s also a flawed thought.

At the height of his prowess, Kevin Stevens didn’t regularly score 40 goals because he was big and powerful and particularly adept at giving as good as he got. He was a powerful skater with wonderful hand-eye coordination. Like Rick Tocchet, later his teammate with the Penguins and also a winger underappreciated by historians, Stevens saw the ice and thought the game at an elite level.

If wingers such as Stevens and Tocchet — the latter should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, the former was on that track at one point — were plentiful, every club would have several. Truth is, no club can ever have enough guys like them because they often personify the steely will a championship club needs to develop.

Hornqvist is not on the level of either a Tocchet or peak-Stevens.

Neither was Chris Kunitz.

Do the Penguins win any of their past two titles without either Hornqvist or Kunitz? Can’t say for sure.

And with Kunitz’s departure after the 2017 Stanley Cup run, only Hornqvist remained as that emotional catalyst willing to play as dirty as the areas in which he worked. To extend their run atop the NHL, the Penguins probably needed more from Hornqvist after than during his initial three seasons in Pittsburgh.

Tough ask of a player with his style. Three seasons of high-end production for a true power forward — at least as true as one can be in the modern NHL — probably break the body as would a decade for players that skate past and around the action instead of into it.

The chart below breaks down Hornqvist at 5 on 5 in his six regular seasons with the Penguins. As recorded by the Natural Stat Trick website, the categories show the Penguins’ percentage of goals- and shots-for when Hornqvist was on the ice (GF%, SF%) and their percentage of unblocked shot attempts when Hornqvist was on the ice (FF%).

The last column in that chart shows total ice time (TOI) played at 5 on 5 by Hornqvist. It does not show his average power-play ice time each of his first four seasons (215:52) or his 966 postseason minutes over that span.

Why call attention to TOI at all? Well, Hornqvist logged over 1,452 minutes for the Penguins from 2014-18. Only Crosby and Malkin played more.

Bottom line: Hornqvist played a lot of hard hockey — and he played it very well — prior to the past couple of seasons. It should surprise nobody who has witnessed power forwards hit walls in the past that Hornqvist seemed to follow that trend toward the end of the 2017-18 season, or that his 2018-19 was the worst of his Penguins’ tenure.

There was never a reason to doubt if Hornqvist, a pro’s pro when it comes to readying himself for the physical and mental grind of an NHL season, had the will to return to form in 2019-20. But history suggests a rugged winger who would turn 33 midseason might not be able to find that form regularly.

It’s not that Hornqvist is old. Rather, his late mid-to-late prime coincided with the most taxing stretch of a carer that had arrived at its 12th season.

What was Patric Hornqvist at this point? This was the question last September.

Heading into August — you know, that traditional month on the hockey calendar — the answer was not obvious. By some measures (GF%), he was better this past season than at any point with the Penguins. By others, (SF% and FF%) his decline carried into a third season.

He was still prone to missing a lot of games; he actually played in a lower percentage of games in 2019-20 (75.4 percent) than over the past two combined seasons (84.8 percent). At least when he did play this past season, the Penguins were way on the plus-side of scoring at 5 on 5 while he was on the ice.

That’s not nothing, especially for a bottom-six forward, which is what Hornqvist appears to have become. And that is probably because Hornqvist is not the possession driver he was during his best seasons in Pittsburgh.

Still, at 5 on 5, Hornqvist produced the second-best marks of his Penguins tenure in expected goals (3.73) and high-danger scoring chances (16.98) per 60 minutes.

Not as good as he once was, but as good once as he ever was? Not quite just yet.

But Hornqvist was, in some ways, closer to his best self this past season than he had been since the 2017 postseason. Given the uncertainty that surrounded him coming into 2019-20, he had to be pleased with how the season went for him.

Not surprised. But pleased.

No surprise, then, that Hornqvist graded at a B.

Read all Penguins’ player grades here.

(Top photo: Joe Sargent / NHLI via Getty Images)