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Pittsburgh Penguins Jake Guentzel cleans out his locker at PPG Paints Arena days after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup.
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Jake Guentzel's challenge: Performing at the same level for an entire NHL season

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Jake Guentzel's challenge: Performing at the same level for an entire NHL season

Eventually, this is going to look hard for Jake Guentzel.

Right?

It certainly didn’t for most of last season, as he tore up the NHL with 16 goals in 40 regular-season games and a league-high 13 in the playoffs.

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But this year, Guentzel will add the challenge of trying to keep up that pace — or at least close to it — over the course of a grueling 82-game NHL schedule for the first time.

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“You’ve got to show you can do it over a full season,” he said. “You don’t really want to have those slumps. I think you kind of implement that in your training over the summer and be ready for this year.”

Guentzel doesn’t have to look very far if he wants some pointers on the adjustment. The Penguins have plenty of guys who have recently made the transition from mid-season call-up to NHL regular. Just a year ago, players such as Bryan Rust and Conor Sheary were the ones in Guentzel’s shoes.

“I think the challenge is that consistency throughout the entire regular season,” Rust said. “There’s going to be nights where your body’s not feeling the greatest and you’ve got to find a way to grind through it.”

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Rust and Sheary, though, said they didn’t think Guentzel would have too much trouble with the pressures of a full season in the big leagues.

“It’s hard to give a guy like that advice,” Sheary said. “He came into camp and he already looks like one of our best players.”

“That’s just the kind of player he is. He’s a top-six player, he fills the net and he’s got a ton of skill. Maybe if he gets down on himself or he’s not scoring for a little bit of time, I can get to him, but right now I think I’ll let him play that out.”

Mike Sullivan has faith in Guentzel’s ability to adapt to the grind because, well, he already has done it. Guentzel played 33 games in the American Hockey League in 2016-17, which combined with the 40 he got in Pittsburgh, put him at 73 for the year — pretty close to the full 82 the Penguins will play this season.

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The level of play is different, to be sure, but Sullivan said he felt the AHL generally does a good job preparing players for the day-to-day routine of a big-league schedule.

“In a lot of instances, the grind of the schedule at the American League level can be more difficult,” Sullivan said. “Sometimes those guys play three games in three nights, for example, and they’ve got to bus and travel. I think there’s a certain level of mental toughness that players need to develop in order to find ways to have success on nights when you don’t feel your best. I think that’s part of learning how to be a pro.”

And while there might be some learning experiences for Guentzel over the course of his first full season in the NHL, he also enters this year with a comfort in the Penguins locker room and in the league as a whole that can only help.

“That’s going to give him a lot of confidence,” Rust said. “A guy like that, if he’s playing with confidence, it’s probably going to be a good thing.”

Specifically, Guentzel knows what it’s like to play on Sidney Crosby’s top line, where he’ll almost certainly start this season. The two seem poised to pick up where they left off in the spring, as they connected for a two-on-one goal in a scrimmage on the first day of training camp.

“Just try and build on last year right now, try and get that chemistry back and see how it goes,” Guentzel said.

“You kind of know what to expect coming in. You’re a little bit more comfortable. The guys, being around them, it gives you a little bit more confidence on the ice. Yeah, definitely feel better coming into this year.”

Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.

First Published: September 17, 2017, 8:47 p.m.

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Pittsburgh Penguins Jake Guentzel cleans out his locker at PPG Paints Arena days after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup.  (Peter Diana/Post-Gazette)
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