Kovacevic: Penguins push to finally get their Phil

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Oh, Kris Letang won the game, all right. Just not how you might think.

Pull up a chair, and let me share a little tale, one that took place several hours before the Penguins' 2-1 shootout victory over the Hurricanes tonight at PNC Arena, one that might well have decided more than the outcome of this single game.

It was the morning skate, and the top power-play unit was working the puck around the perimeter, as it's done effectively for weeks now under Mike Sullivan. It went from Sidney Crosby to Chris Kunitz out to the point to Letang and, finally, across to Phil Kessel.

Zing!

Lasered, top-shelf, over Marc-Andre Fleury's glove. A thing of beauty.

That marked the end of the power-play drill, and Kessel and his mates skated back to center red, Kessel grinning and having a bit of playful fun with his fine shot, as is commonplace. None of it was a big deal. Skates are fun. They're loose.

But it was then that Letang skated swiftly to catch up to Kessel and barked out, loud enough to be heard around the empty arena, "Hey!"

Kessel swung around, as if he knew it was being aimed his way.



"Do that in the game!" Letang finished.

No grin.

Dead silence.

Read into that what you will, but here's what I found out upon further conversation: The Penguins had seen more than enough of Kessel's level of emotion not matching the rest of the group. And in turn, Kessel evidently had enough of being the general fall guy. As one wise voice with the team would say late in the evening, without elaboration, "Eventually you get sick and tired of everyone saying it's all your fault, you know?"

The result, as everyone would see, was not only that Kessel scored his team's only regulation goal ...



... but also that he performed with a passion not previously seen in a Pittsburgh sweater. And yes, that includes games in which he produced more points. He was all over the puck all night. He fought for territory. Matched a season high with seven shots. Ventured into tight quarters. Forechecked. Backchecked. Made focused decisions with the puck.

And in the third period, after his arm was inadvertently gashed by the skate blade of a tripped Carolina player, he bolted directly for the visitors' runway, whipped off his gloves, was rushed to the locker room, got all stitched up, returned to the ice within five minutes and, on his first shift back, used his cut arm to fend off one of the Hurricanes on a torrid rush through the neutral zone.

Understand this: I'm not a Kessel basher. If anything, I've probably been more patient with him than most. From the moment Jim Rutherford acquired him last summer, my stance has been that he is what he is. He'll get you 25-30 goals, he'll add speed on the rush, and that will more than offset his many shortcomings, notably those involving a lack of effort. And in that context, I'll unapologetically stand by it all. Heck, for all Kessel's flaws, he's still got 16 goals and 35 points, including 15 points in his past 18 games. So it's not like he's firing all blanks.

But here's where I misjudged: The Penguins have plenty enough people who do go full throttle, and those people -- those of us in the public be damned -- weren't going to stand for it.

That's what manifested itself here tonight. I'm sure of it.

Not just because of Letang's outburst. Not just because of how Kessel responded by nightfall. But because of other stuff I'd eventually hear.

Let's start with Mike Sullivan, on the record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dACvTCOEzg0

That's the safe, smart way to describe it. This guy's smart.

But when I brought up Kessel's suddenly elevated effort to a veteran player, offering this player the option to go right ahead and make any excuse he wanted for Kessel not having performed that way previously, here was the response: "Yeah, he worked hard tonight. We need to see that all the time. We need Phil. We need what he can bring to us."

The inflection on "tonight" was that of the player. I didn't add it.

I raised the same topic with a member of management, and the response was that much more candid: "Phil is the wild card. We need more from him. He has to compete harder. He needs to score to take pressure off 87 and 71."

Those, of course, are Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

When I brought up the Letang-Kessel interaction at the morning skate, the management member quickly came back with a smile: "Tanger and Sid have been unreal, on and off the ice, since Christmas."

I'd have loved to have spoken with Kessel, obviously, but the Penguins' media relations staff couldn't make him available because he was instructed to proceed directly to the athletic trainer's room after the game to further tend to his cut.

Not that he would have added much. All the important speaking occurred on the ice. And as that member of management stressed, it was Letang and Crosby who stood tallest.

Letang, like the Penguins, was sluggish early but revived himself late and was a giant both defensively and in terms of possession.

Oh, and he finished the shootout with this walkoff home run to beat Cam Ward:



Yeah, the backhand. Again.

Why do goaltenders keep falling for that move, anyway?

"I don't use it every time, do I?" Letang came back to my jab, not smiling at all. I simply nodded back because, you know, he does go backhand all the time. "OK, well, what I'm trying to do there is read the goalie's pads, see if he's going down. The puck was on edge, so I got a little scared, but I got control of it in time."

I interjected again to note that Ward mostly had held his ground but poked forward with the stick. Maybe that was more of a factor than the pads this time?

"Doesn't matter. I'm looking at the pads. If the pads are down, I know I'm going upstairs."

Probably backhand.

"Yeah, probably backhand."

There was the smile.

Across the smallish room, Crosby was the last out of his pads. He and Letang are almost always 1-2 in that regard, first to arrive, last to leave and all that. It's a part of what that member of management was referencing in terms of leadership.

The captain was visibly gassed. Not just then, but back in the three-on-three OT, when he had several circus-quality attempts on Ward only to be thwarted on each. At the end of one minute-plus shift, he wound up with the puck in the neutral zone for what looked like a partial break he'd rather pass up.

He didn't. He kept churning, gave it one more shot.

But he had to have at least contemplated dumping or passing to change, didn't he?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awj-6y6uG6A

This is Crosby at his very best, and not just with all the goals and assists and even the fantastic plays he's creating that don't bring points. That up there, in that video, is Crosby at his very best because he's carrying the team. He's comfortable with that. I've seen it before in Pittsburgh but also in Vancouver and Sochi when he led Canada to Olympic gold. He doesn't merely wear the 'C.' He owns it. For better or worse.

He's happiest right now because his progress is matching the team's progress.

Same with Letang. Same with Fleury. Same with Malkin when he returns.

But the core clearly is pushing to add one more.