NEW YORK -- There are optional morning skates, and then there are you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-no-way skates. The one in which the Penguins engaged on this Wednesday at Madison Square Garden would rank somewhere below the latter, with the smattering of participants barely budging, without so much as a single whistle being blown.
And yet, there were Derick Brassard and Sidney Crosby at one end, taking shot after shot, twirl after twirl, peppering poor Tristan Jarry with pucks.
An extra 10 minutes.
Then 20.
Then, when Mike Sullivan emerged from the nearby locker room to see if anyone was still lingering, 10 more of this:
Coincidence?
I'm guessing not.
This captain comes with his own brand of leadership and, although he'd confirm to me afterward the primary reason he was a rare participant in an optional skate was the 8:08 p.m. faceoff with the Rangers to accommodate NBC, I've learned enough about him to realize there's always a little extra there.
He wants to help Brassard get going. And in this specific case, he wanted to help Brassard get through what might be a trying morning facing the standard New York media contingent and answering questions about his time here.
"Sid's great at everything," Brassard would tell me when I brought it up. "Everyone here's really welcomed me with open arms. They've been great to me."
Sounded like there was a "but" coming, though it never came. Which is fine because that's now glaringly obvious: Brassard's got a goal, an assist and 15 shots to show for his first seven games since the Penguins gave up an awful lot to pry him away from the Senators before the NHL trade deadline. This despite skating alongside the all-universe version of Phil Kessel,
That's just not good enough, and he knows it:
Maybe this sheet of ice at the self-proclaimed world's most famous arena will work the wonders. Because shortly after arriving in Pittsburgh, Brassard told me he never felt more comfortable in his career from a schematic standpoint than when he was with the Rangers under Alain Vigneault. And he didn't have to dig deep to explain.
"He let me be me," Brassard said that day. "The game was really fast in New York, everything uptempo. That's my game."
I mentioned that to Vigneault after New York's skate, and it almost brought a smile to the face of a coach who just saw a quarter of his roster traded away.
"He's a good player," Vigneault replied. "For us, it seemed like the bigger the game, the better he played. He played some important minutes. He was one of our top two centers. I know in Pittsburgh -- and this shows you the strength of that team -- he's the third-line center. He's a really good player. And it seems like playoffs come around, he plays his best hockey of the year. That's what he did for us."
Asked what he's seen of Brassard so far with the Penguins, Vigneault added, "He'll get used to his new environment. He's a good young man who works extremely hard. And he's a hockey fanatic. He knows everything that's going on everywhere. I'm sure he's going to play really well for them."
Similar sentiments were expressed in the New York locker room.
"He was a really good player for us," Mats Zuccarello, one of the Rangers' few remaining veterans, told me. "I think he's kind of new to the team in Pittsburgh. And from where he was ..."
Zuccarello paused in an obvious attempt to figure out how to describe the Senators' system without offending anyone.
"I think it's going to take him some time. He was in Ottawa playing one way, and now he's out there with Crosby and everybody they have. It's a different system, but there are also a lot of strong personalities that have been there for a long time. It's going to take a while for him to find his place, but he's going to be a huge part of that team."
Zuccarello shook his head, then emphasized, "I mean huge. He's one of the best players I've ever played with. So smart, fast, skilled. We've had some success here. We made it to the Stanley Cup Final, to a conference final, the Presidents' Trophy ... he was a big part of all of that. I'm not surprised Pittsburgh went and got him. They're going to love him. I'm happy for him, and Pittsburgh should be, too."
The Penguins clearly feel no differently. Sullivan, asked about Brassard: "Good hockey player. Really good hockey player." Crosby: "Good hockey player." It's the same all-around, accompanied by an understanding that going from skating backward for two years to skating forward requires quite the U-turn.
Those usually aren't advised in Midtown Manhattan, but hey.
"I feel like I have a lot more to give," Brassard would say, looking a little more nervous than the norm before that New York horde. "But it's a process. I'm going to take some time here in the next couple games to try to make sure I'm going into the playoffs with my A-game. But I'm happy. I'm excited. We have a really good team here and a really good group of people. It's an exciting time. We just need to get going."
