COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Now, maybe more than at any point in this most mercurial season, the Penguins no longer have any excuses.
And that's to their credit, of course.
Remember the angst over back-to-back games?
Or too many in a cluster?
Or general fatigue?
Or injuries?
Or lacking goaltending depth?
Yeah, well, this 5-2 burial of the Blue Jackets on this Sunday at Nationwide Arena marked the visitors' third game in four nights, their fifth in eight days, the third on the road in that latter span, the latest in which they were missing their heart-and-soul forward and one of their finest defensemen and, for good measure, the first NHL work for their backup goaltender in a month.
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEOAnd yet, all these guys have done since the calendar flipped to 2018 is flip the switch to the tune of 16-4-1 for a league-best 33 points, regardless of setting or circumstance.
Oh, and honest-to-gosh top spot in the Metro.
So, what happened?
I asked Jamie Oleksiak, and he definitely got me rolling:
"We committed to a style of play," the big man spoke there, and his specific reference, as he'd clarify, was primarily to simple puck support.
There was ample viral material from this game -- Riley Sheahan's two goals to match his 2016-17 total in Detroit, Tristan Jarry's 35 saves in his return, Jake Guentzel's three points -- and Chris Bradford's headline article will cover all the speed, skill and other fun stuff.
Me, I'm going for boring:
That, my friends, might be the single most boring sequence of the entire evening, one that surely -- and rightly -- was ignored by all 19,100 packing the place.
You're welcome.
But that's the foundation of what's been happening.
That up there is Olli Maatta having a bit of trouble backhanding the puck across the Pittsburgh blue line. No big deal, really, if he does or doesn't. The Blue Jackets aren't in a threatening position even if something goes awry.
Even so, Sheahan and Phil Kessel come rushing over to help. Even Guentzel sneaks across from the far wing, in case the puck pops loose. and, within moments, possession is regained -- quality possession by Maatta, with room to reset -- and the Penguins proceed back up ice.
That's it. That's where the games are being won. That's how a desperate Columbus team that had rung up three consecutive 50-plus shot totals earlier in the week was reduced to little more than perimeter noise. That's how the Penguins' disadvantage of having played the previous night, while the Blue Jackets rested, was nullified. And you'd better believe that's how five goals get rung up with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kessel combining for a single point.
"We're doing the little things to help each other, especially in our zone," Kris Letang would tell me. "Guys are coming back. Guys are picking up their assignments. And when somebody gets in trouble, we're there."
"It's beginning on the back end, for sure," Sheahan told me. "For this team, as I've learned, everything builds from the back. If we take care of that, then we have the clean zone exits we need, there's enough talent here to do the rest."
Mike Sullivan, not surprisingly, wouldn't mention puck support without puck management when I brought it up:
He's absolutely right to do so. But nothing that anyone does with the puck matters if they, you know, don't have the puck.
The Penguins have it right now and, thus, so much more.
• OK, Coach, we'll talk puck management.
When Letang's at his best, it's not so much that he speeds up but, rather, that the game around him slows down.
Watch this on the Penguins' fourth goal:
This is a few seconds before Zach Aston-Reese would bang home the rebound of Matt Hunwick's push from the point. Letang's dragging the puck down the Columbus right boards. With his chin always up, he easily could have flicked the puck right then, and no one would have complained.
I confirmed that with him.
"We had two guys there," Letang told me, referring to both Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon presenting targets. "But they fronted me really hard, and I didn't think I could get it through."
He didn't force the pass. He didn't hope. Instead, he looked, waited, faked a shot, froze the defense, then saw Hunwick scaling behind him to offer for another option, and went back there.
"I saw Hunny and, again, they were fronting me, so I knew there would be a different way to get the puck to the net," Letang continued. "I just took what they gave me."
"It's a really good look by Tanger," Aston-Reese told me. "It changes the whole rink."
Coaches talk about plays that separate special players. That's one.
• Aston-Reese scores goals like he means it. That's innate, and it's great. Goals should never be taken for granted.
• Back to zone exits. And more Letang.
"We all see how he's skating, how he's possessing the puck ... he's just so calm back there," Sheahan told me. "He breaks us out so easily and, like I said before, that's where a lot of our offense starts. He's one of the best in the league at doing that. I honestly think that part of his game -- a lot of his game -- gets underrated. Teams don't like going against him. There's a reason for that."
• I had to ask Letang how he felt about his game, which has been terrific of late, even though I knew he wouldn't say that it's been terrific of late.
"Better," he replied flatly. "I've still got to do better."
• John Tortorella, gracious in defeat, didn't sound surprised the Penguins have bounced back as they have.
"They're that good," he said. "It's a well-coached team. It's a team that can find different ways to beat you."
Which is nice. But it sure seems strange that all this talent in Columbus -- and yeah, I've seen the injury list, which grew in-game with Nick Foligno's loss in the second period -- is stuck outside the playoff picture. Something's off. And it isn't just the lack of depth at center anymore.
• Sergei Bobrovsky, considered by some advanced goaltending metrics to be the best at his position in the league this season, must have horrific dreams in shades of black and gold.
Three of the Penguins' first four shots beat him, four of their first 12, five of their first 18, and somehow it couldn't be seen as any sort of surprise given how this specific opponent's tormented him now for nearly a decade.
Career regular-season save percentage: .920.
Career playoff save percentage: .887.
Career playoff games: 18
Career playoff games vs. Pittsburgh: 12
One gets the concept. And it swings both ways, actually. No one from the Penguins would ever speak such a thing publicly, but they approach Bobrovsky the same way they always have the Capitals' Braden Holtby, another Vezina winner they've owned: They go right at him. No fear. No respect.
That's how and why Jake Guentzel cuts loose with this no-chance, short-side slapper that somehow slips under the blocker:
"It's tough," Bobrovsky would say afterward, a white towel somewhat poetically draped around his neck. "They shoot from blue line. They create offense. They're very smart. They don't just shoot the puck and hope it goes in. It's very challenging to play against them."
A nightmare, some might say.
• Sheahan might be the answer, but he isn't the question.
I'm buying what Jim Rutherford began selling to our site a couple weeks back, that Sheahan could be the third-line center the Penguins have been awaiting for months. It's impossible not to be a buyer when he's put up eight points in the past dozen games and, just as important, has given Kessel the third-line home Sullivan always covets. He's done that and stayed diligent.
But the question is fourth-line center. The cost should be reasonable, and the need still exists for depth. It's still No. 1.
• Best player on the rink?
Nah, not Kessel this time, though he stayed solid.
Honestly, I loved what Jarry brought, rust and all. Because if anyone had anything to prove on the current active roster, it was Jarry proving that he could sit for a long spell and still perform when summoned. In particular, he made this superb stop early on Foligno that could have violently swung the initial momentum:
Jarry isn't Casey DeSmith. Jarry is much more gifted. And he's well on his way toward earning playoff backup status by showing the poise to match.
• Not writing this just because Brian Dumoulin scored the game's icebreaking goal, but fierce fist-bumps go to Rutherford, Bill Guerin, Jason Botterill, Tom Fitzgerald and everyone involved with the Penguins' development staff for having correctly pegged Dumoulin as the better of the two defensemen back when the Maple Leafs were wrangling over the Kessel trade. That's how one stayed and the other went.
Can't recommend strongly enough revisiting this column from the day of the Kessel trade that detailed that aspect in this passage:
I’ll take it a step further, too: Scott Harrington, the defense prospect sent to Toronto along with Kasperi Kapanen, ranked no higher than fourth on the Penguins’ internal list for young defensemen, behind Maatta, (Derrick) Pouliot and Brian Dumoulin. It used to be the other way around between Harrington and Dumoulin, but I began hearing early last season that Dumoulin had stepped up — partly because of his being two years older and more mature, but also because of skating — and that was supported in the playoff series with the Rangers, when Dumoulin was used and Harrington scratched.
Dumoulin's twice the player Harrington is. Always will be.
Seemed like a small thing back then. It's how championship rosters are built.
