PITTSBURGH _ From the family section at PPG Paints Arena, Ryan Guentzel watched the tic-tac-toe goal unfold from the perfect vantage point. There was Bryan Rust flying into the zone, Evgeni Malkin leaving a no-look pass on the doorstep and, finally, his brother, Jake Guentzel, driving to the net for his 20th goal of the season.
The whole place went bonkers, with the goal horn blaring and towels twirling. And then it went silent.
Skates crossed. Bodies flew. Jake crashed, shoulder-first, into the boards.
With the wall obstructing Ryan's view, he couldn't see his little brother writhing in pain on the ice. But for every second he stayed down, the knot in Ryan's stomach grew.
"That's when I knew right away that something wasn't right," Ryan said.
In the Guentzels' hockey household, there's a rule: Never lay on the ice. No matter how bad the hit or how much it hurts, pop up and skate off. That message has been ingrained in the boys so much that even in March 2017, with blood streaming down Jake's face, the stunned and stumbling winger staggered to his feet after a concussion.
Inside the arena on Dec. 30, Ryan's phone blew up with text messages from family back home in Minnesota. Just hours earlier, Jake called his dad, Mike, on the way home from the Penguins' morning skate to tell him he'd made his first All-Star Game. Mike, a scout for the Arizona Coyotes, almost couldn't believe it at first but soon put it on his calendar to make sure he could be in St. Louis instead of on the road. Jake's mom, Sally, scoured the internet for flights and hotels.
"At that point, you're saying, boy, this would be something that might be once in a lifetime," Mike said.
But travel plans were the least of their worries now. Unfortunately, the Guentzel boys know first-hand how a fast and physical sport can change a life in a split second. One of their assistants at Hill-Murray High School, Pat Schafhauser, coached from a wheelchair after he was paralyzed from the waist down in Switzerland. It was easy to fear the worst.
"It's just something you never want your kid being involved in," Mike said. "A very scary moment for our family for sure."
Eventually, Jake pulled himself onto his feet. With his right arm sagging, he skated off the ice, walked down the dark tunnel and vanished. That painful moment became the last image of Jake Guentzel in uniform during the regular 2019-20 season.
Now, seven months later, Guentzel is back on the ice in a best-of-five qualifying round series against the Montreal Canadiens. He notched an assist in the Penguins' 3-2 overtime loss on Saturday.
His return is one of this unique postseason's biggest X-factors, adding unexpected health to a Penguins team with enviable forward depth. This is the time of year when Guentzel has historically done his best work, raising a Stanley Cup and tying an NHL postseason points record as a rookie. But what might get overlooked from a 5-11, 180-pound skater is the way he racks up those points, by going into the tough areas and sacrificing his body like he did that night on Dec. 30.
"What I've always admired about Jake's game is not only is he a great player, but he's courageous," coach Mike Sullivan said earlier this year.
At first glance, he sure doesn't look tough, with curly blond hair and a babyface that would make an honest bouncer wonder if he's using one of his older brothers' IDs. Before he was drafted by the Penguins, at least one NHL organization made him take off his shirt so they could examine the what was, at the time, a scrawny 147-pound kid's bone structure. Yes, really.
But looks can be deceiving. Desire is hard to quantify. And sometimes the toughest competitors never let you know they're hurting.
This is the story of how an undersized kid with underrated toughness learned to pick himself back up.
