Jake Guentzel recovered from ankle surgery, will play in Pittsburgh Penguins’ season opener

The Pittsburgh Penguins will start their 2023-24 season at very close to full strength. The team has announced that star goal-scoring left winger Jake Guentzel will be in their lineup for Tuesday night’s season opener, when the Pens will host Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks.

The team revealed in August that Guentzel, 29, was recovering from offseason ankle surgery and was expected to be sidelined into the regular season. By the time training camp arrived, the prognosis had improved to the point Guentzel was only expected to miss something in the range of five games. But he’s beaten that timeline too and will rejoin the team for Tuesday’s game, skating on a line with Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust.

Guentzel has been a crucial and consistent component of Pittsburgh’s attack since debuting in 2016-17. Over this past five seasons specifically, he averages 39 goals per 82 games while scoring at better than a point-per-game clip. He’s one of 27 NHL players to average at least a point per game over the past five seasons combined (min. 50 GP). Guentzel elevates his game to an even higher level in the postseason; with 34 goals in just 58 career playoff games, he has the sixth-highest goals per game in postseason history among players with 50-plus games at 0.59, trailing only Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, Maurice Richard, Cam Neely and Wayne Gretzky.

Guentzel gets healthy just in time to embark on a contract year. He’s in the final season of a five-year deal paying him $6 million a year and taking him to unrestricted free agency in 2024. He’s set to command a major raise on that AAV. According to GM and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas, the team and Guentzel’s camp have yet to begin negotiations on a new deal with Guentzel because they were waiting for him to be healthy.