DETROIT -- It would be easy to see the sort of early-season success Pittsburgh Penguins' Patric Hornqvist is having and simply chalk it up to the guy on his left.
Ask a former college player or even the weekly men's leaguer and they'd likely puff out their chest and defiantly tell you that they too could look impressive while playing on a line with superstar Sidney Crosby.
Even Hornqvist himself seems abundantly aware of his good fortune. He knows flanking the league's best player is an enviable position.
"He can make things happen from nothing," Hornqvist said, marveling at Crosby's ability to create, to pull off high-risk plays, to assert himself when he has the puck.
But leaving it at that would be far too simplistic, not to mention unfair to Hornqvist, who has four goals and eight points in his first six games of the season.
Before his trade to the Penguins on draft day in June, the 27-year-old winger posted four seasons of 20 goals or more with the Nashville Predators, whom his Penguins face Saturday night.
In his first full season in Nashville, in 2009-10, he scored 30 goals. And his attributes cannot be limited to the numbers. It's his work ethic, his straightforward game, his nose for the net, that have his new coach and teammates thrilled about his arrival.
"Very good on the forecheck, very good around the net. You see it on the power play but you also see it 5-on-5," Penguins coach Mike Johnston explained. "He's got a really good stick, creates traffic, creates havoc there ... Overall, his energy is contagious on our team."
Ask others around the league and you will be hard-pressed to find anyone so much as arching an eyebrow at this production. With Hornqvist's reputation, this much was to be expected.
"Not surprised," said veteran Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall, who worked out with Hornqvist in previous summers back in their native Sweden. "Everyone knows he's the type of guy who is capable of scoring 40 goals. He's such a determined guy, a hard worker who does everything full-out. He's a guy everyone wants on his team."
Mike Santos, the former assistant general manager of the Florida Panthers who previously worked as director of hockey operations for the Predators, likened him to Tomas Holmstrom and Dino Ciccarelli. Santos described Hornqvist as "fearless" in front of the net.
"He is always around the net and has great hands for tipping pucks and banging home rebounds," Santos told ESPN.com via text message.
One veteran Swedish journalist pointed out that Hornqvist has typically elevated his game when paired with elite players, such as when he played with Nicklas Backstrom on the Swedish national junior team and when he had a breakout season in 2006-07 while playing with prolific point producer Fredrik Bremberg on Djurgardens IF Stockholm of the Swedish Elite League.
A deeper look into Hornqvist's strengths through statistics also support this argument. His ability to generate offense is one of his calling cards, with his shots-per-60 minutes ratio among the best in the league. Last season, he averaged 11.76 per year, good for seventh in the NHL, according to hockeyanalysis.com This season, while playing with Crosby, he is averaging 13.61 (even with no shots on goal in Thursday's 4-3 overtime loss to Detroit), which stands as 11th overall.
It's easy to make the connection that more shots with better linemates is going to equal an increase in production. Hornqvist is, not shockingly, a strong possession player as well, and that is not just a function of his short time with Crosby and Chris Kunitz. Though he has a 55.1 percent Corsi-for percentage while playing virtually exclusively with those two, he was at 51.1 percent last season while primarily playing with Mike Fisher (Fisher's CF percentage was 49.2 while playing with Hornqvist, and plummeted to 41.2 percent when they were apart) according to hockeyanalysis.com.
Those factors were not the driving force in Hornqvist's acquisition -- Jim Rutherford's first significant move as the Penguins new general manager -- though Rutherford said that the advanced stats "checked out."
"It's his style of play," Rutherford told ESPN.com Thursday night.
Rutherford was looking to make changes to the Penguins' group of top-six forwards (the trade sent James Neal to Nashville in exchange for Hornqvist and Nick Spaling) and he liked what Hornqvist brought to that dynamic: An energetic, hard-working game and, perhaps most importantly, that essential net-front presence that has been critical not only to the team's even-strength production but also as another weapon (and right-handed shot) on the club's vaunted power-play unit.
Though the Red Wings' top-ranked penalty kill stymied the Penguins Thursday night, Pittsburgh remains No. 1 with the man advantage, converting on eight of 22 chances. It's been a treat for Hornqvist to get such an opportunity, playing on the specialty team's first unit along with Crosby, Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
Patric Hornqvist
#72 RW
Pittsburgh Penguins
2015 STATS
- GM6
G4
A4
PTS8
+/-0
- PIM2
Hornqvist's pairing on a line with Crosby and Kunitz wasn't even part of Johnston's original plan. In fact, Johnston had initially intended to play Hornqvist with Malkin, but an injury to the latter prompted Hornqvist's promotion. On the Penguins' top line, Hornqvist has been a benefactor not only of Crosby's elite playmaking skills and superb vision but of Kunitz's relentless, rugged style as well.
"It helps a lot, obviously," Hornqvist said. "We can get [opponents] scrambling around a little bit and they get out of position. When we get the puck back, always someone has to recover for someone. Playing with those type of players opens up more space."
Kunitz garnered similar attention to Hornqvist last season with a stunning 35-goal 2013-14 year. Kunitz, who was wasn't drafted, landed a spot on the Canadian Olympic team that went on to win gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Many wondered whether Kunitz would've gotten there had it not been for his undeniable chemistry with Crosby, but he deserved to be there in his own right, according to Team Canada's coach Mike Babcock.
"[Kunitz] just flat-out brings it every day, with or without the puck," Babcock said. "He's a star in a workingman's body. When you stick-handle real good, they say you're talented, but when you're mentally tough and you work harder than the other guy, they say you work hard. To me, that's being a star."
Babcock might as well be talking about Hornqvist, too. To see Hornqvist have that sort of success with a duo that Babcock sees as two of the best puck-retrieval players in the league is not altogether surprising. But Babcock admitted he didn't know Hornqvist that well.
That could change soon enough.