Heading into this season, Mike Sullivan said the Penguins were excited about the possibility of Drew O’Connor’s game and its evolution, with the coaching staff hoping the young forward could take another step in his development.
“I think he's getting better with every year that he's played with us,” Sullivan said back in training camp. “Drew has a better understanding, I think, of how he needs to play the game in order to set himself up for success.”
And success is what O’Connor has found this year. After opening the scoring in Pittsburgh’s 3-0 victory over Seattle on Monday, O’Connor established a new personal best in goals with six and continues to increase his career high in points (15).
The 25-year-old has become a player that the Penguins can trust anywhere in the lineup, with O’Connor currently playing in the top-six alongside Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust. Sullivan called the 6-foot-3, 200-pound forward a ‘powerful guy’ who’s figuring out how to use his size, strength, reach, and skating ability to become difficult to play against.
“I think he's really added a dimension to Geno's line, just getting in on the forecheck, forcing defensemen to have to make plays under duress,” Sullivan said. “A lot of times, it turns into a turnover or an errant pass, and opportunity presents itself. I think when they have possession, he's going to the blue paint, he's going to the net front, and he's getting rewarded. I think he's starting to figure it out on how he can play to his strengths.”
While O’Connor may be one of the most soft-spoken guys in the locker room, he is finding more confidence on the ice and with the puck, which has been huge for his goal of establishing himself as an NHL regular.
“I kind of look to make plays instead of just throwing pucks off my stick right away,” O’Connor said. “I think that’s just something that comes with playing a long stretch in this league at the end of last season and through the first half of this season now. I think my confidence continues to grow.”
Sullivan said that on earlier occasions when O’Connor got opportunities with Malkin – a player whose jersey Drew and his brother Jack had growing up in New Jersey – “sometimes he tried to play Geno's game instead of playing OC’s game. I think he's doing a much better job of that, and I think his confidence is building because of it. Success breeds success. He's had some success playing on Geno's line. When plays are there to be made, he's very capable, and the fact that he scored a few goals certainly is a huge boost.”
O’Connor has worked extremely hard these last few years to put himself in this position, with Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas pointing out the unique start to his pro career. “He still has not played a lot of pro hockey quite yet, just because of the way he came out from college and the way that life has gone in the world since then,” Dubas told Josh Getzoff in a recent episode of the GM Show.
His journey to Dartmouth is an incredible story, and after a two-year stint playing college hockey with the Big Green, he signed with the Penguins on March 10, 2020, just two days before the NHL postponed its season due to the pandemic.
“I think it was kind of a weird start to my pro career,” O’Connor said. “It didn't necessarily go the way I think anyone expected. I never got that opportunity to play right away, but things slowly kind of returned back to normal, and it feels good to be playing hockey at this level and enjoying it.”
During that 2020-21 season, O’Connor spent time in Pittsburgh (10 games), Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (20 games) and in Norway, as the Penguins loaned him to Manglerud for some playing time amongst the restrictions in North America.
O’Connor had decent stints in the NHL each of the next two years, playing 22 games in 2021-22 and 46 games last season, and showed exciting glimpses of his potential. When he reported for training camp this year, O’Connor just seemed ready to put it all together.
He first found his footing on a third line with Lars Eller and Radim Zohorna; then spent time alongside Sidney Crosby; and is now thriving alongside Malkin and Rust, the latter being a player O’Connor named as a ‘blueprint’ for young guys like him coming up through WBS.
“I think Rusty's just a guy that kind of played in a similar scenario a lot of us do when we come up, a limited role and playing PK and things like that,” O’Connor said. “I think he established himself in that way, so I think for a lot of guys trying to come up and play here, he’s a good player to look at. I think it's just impressive how he's continued to develop year after year, grow his offensive game.
O'Connor has had a lot of 1-on-1 time behind the scenes with Penguins assistant coach Mike Vellucci, who oversees the penalty kill. As Sullivan also said at the beginning of the year, the penalty kill would be an important element of O’Connor establishing himself as an NHL player, and they’ve been impressed with his work on that unit.
“His defensive coverage, just his awareness away from the puck, he's much more conscientious,” Sullivan said. “When you combine that with the speed he brings and north-south game and utilizing his size and his reach, I think he can be a very effective player.”
While he has now found some consistency with the city he plays in, along the way O'Connor has taken one of Sullivan's oft-used phrases to heart: embrace the process.
“For me, I just try to enjoy playing hockey every day, just try to improve every day and I never really worried about being drafted or things like that," O'Connor said. "I just kind of always enjoyed it and just tried to steadily improve, and you know, it's nice to be in this position now.”
