CRANBERRY, Pa. -- There's a lot to love about a perfect, cross-continental road trip, but not necessarily the aftermath.
A few of the Penguins I surveyed Monday at the Lemieux Sports Complex described themselves as dragging from the long flight home the previous night from Vancouver. That drag can come in many forms, but, speaking from experience, it's typically too much sleep rather than not enough. The range I picked up from surveying the room was roughly eight hours, although Jake Guentzel went "10 hours, maybe all day, I can't even remember."
Yeah, it's like that.
Which is undoubtedly why Mike Sullivan's practice on this afternoon -- as in, after noon -- pretty much put the boys through their paces. Nothing too systemic or strategy-based. Just churn, churn, churn, to get rid of those "airplane legs," as the hockey coaches call them.
That's one challenge, maybe the biggest, the Penguins will face tonight against the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena. Certainly in the first few minutes, if not the full period.
"What we need to do," as Bryan Rust observed, "is keep our skates moving."
What's beyond that matters more, though. Because this group collectively did so much correctly in going 4-0 through Canada that it would feel like a complete waste to leave all that behind.
In that spirit, I conducted another survey, this one slightly more challenging: What, I asked several players, would be the one trait they'd most like to preserve from the trip?
The scope of the answers was telling, beginning with a predictably tactical one from Sidney Crosby ...
... and from there veering all over the place.
Jamie Oleksiak: "I'd say it's just working as a five-man unit, up and down the ice. Tight. When you lose a guy like Justin Schultz, that's a big part of our defense corps. I think having our forwards come back is important for us. A lot of teams in this league put a lot of pressure on you, and the Islanders are one of those teams. They're going to be right on us. The more guys we have back, or up in the rush in the neutral zone, the better off we're going to be."
Olli Maatta: "It's hard to say because I think we did everything well up there. If I had to pick one, it would be finishing checks. They weren't the hardest checks, but they did the job. I think that's the way we have to play. If you want to be hard to play against ... you don't have to kill people, but you've got to make sure you take their speed away. Bump them. Play through them. We're not the biggest-hitting team out there, but we can do that."
Dominik Simon: "I know what it is. It's the attitude. The hard focus. The hard work. Playing all 60 minutes. We have everything. You see our team. We have great offense, great defense, great goaltending. I feel like it's just about how much we want it. That started in Toronto. You saw it."
I did. And wrote about it. The focus, the work really did take root in Toronto and, deeper than that, in at least some of the Penguins being put off by all the early hype over the Maple Leafs, in particular the preposterous notion that their two star centers, Auston Matthews and John Tavares, were equal or even superior to Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. They talked about a whole lot more than they let on publicly, trust me.
But what that primarily achieved, that hard focus and hard work Simon cited, was to put into play the stuff the other guys cited. Because all of it mattered.
Crosby pointed to smart puck management, and the examples abounded, not least of which was this gorgeous zone entry Saturday night in Vancouver, from Maatta to Guentzel to Simon to the captain to undressing poor Jacob Markstrom:
On every touch, but especially Maatta's, an easier decision was available. No one would have minded, for instance, had a backpedaling Maatta simply banked a pass up the right boards and played it safe. But he didn't. Head up, he found Guentzel at the far blue line, safely through the middle of the ice, to boomerang a rush back the other way.
Oleksiak's stance on the five-man unit applies here, too, as it was Simon backchecking up the right boards that forced the Canucks' turnover to Maatta.
And really, the most fulfilling result of the silly survey just might be that there was so, so much to like.
Definitely worth keeping intact.
• Worried about Simon on the first line?
Wondering why Patric Hornqvist isn't simply slotted there?
Rise above. At least for the short term. Because what matters most to the first question is that Crosby loves having Simon with him for puck support and 200-foot duty, and what matters most to the second is that Sullivan loves having an effective, reliable third line.
Eventually, probably upon Zach Aston-Reese's return, all this can sort itself out. For the playoffs, Crosby and Hornqvist can be put back together, and another type of third line can be crafted. But for now, the Penguins get to keep a winning lineup mostly intact without Derick Brassard, and two really important people can have what they want.
• If Kris Letang's good to go tonight, Juuso Riikola again will be a healthy scratch. That helps no one. And since he can be demoted without having to clear waivers, it's a no-brainer that he should.
Regardless, give the kid all kinds of credit, and not just for the obvious. Because I can tell you unconditionally that he applied pressure on a good number of experienced defensemen who have visibly benefited from it. Nothing scares a veteran like the hotshot rookie.
• The NHL's massive betting partnership with MGM, announced yesterday in New York, opens the door for untold changes to how the game is conducted, as it will for all American sports since the Supreme Court's legalization of sports gambling in May.
But one concept, broached almost casually by Gary Bettman at the press conference, really grabbed my ear: Part of the league's role in the deal is to provide official "player-tracking" data, via advanced analytics, to the sports books. There weren't specifics attached, but wide open within that, one would think, would be using new tech that's actually attached to the athletes to provide information unlike any we've seen in hockey.
Picture this: If Carl Hagelin has hard data, through this tech, that he's the fastest human on skates on this planet, his bargaining power gets a big boost. Or not, if it turns out that he's actually nowhere near as fast as we think.
And then the possession numbers ... wow.
• On the subject of player surveys, I canvassed a couple of the Steelers with the following: How in the world could anyone put James Conner back on the bench if Le'Veon Bell returns?
This one didn't get far. Most guys declined. One just shook his head and replied, "You ..." as if to suggest I was stirring trouble.
David DeCastro came closest to an actual answer: "I don't know. Thankfully, it's not my decision."
I tried.
• They can't say it, so I will: Conner is this team's running back. And not for any reason other than that he's been a better running back in 2018 than Bell was in 2017.
No bonus narratives needed: Conner's averaging 0.21 missed tackles forced per carry to Bell's 0.14. Conner's averaging 3.08 yards after contact per rushing attempt to Bell's 2.6. Conner's averaging 8.28 yards per receiving target to Bell's 6.36. Conner's got an alarming advantage in Pro Football Focus' Elusive Rating, measuring how well he avoids tackle attempts in the first place, of 91.6 to 39.1.
It's well past time to seriously consider that the Steelers might currently have the better player.
I know, I know. I can't believe it, either. But I'm not going to be blind to what's right in front of me.
• If and when Bell hits the open market, his package should come with the following warning: OFFENSIVE LINE SOLD SEPARATELY
• Never, ever, ever take the Browns seriously. Anyone who made that mistake, just because they were showing up on people's TVs this summer, take it back.
• Just in case anyone thought Gregory Polanco had a lock on Pittsburgh's worst slide of 2018, I submit for consideration this jewel from Vince Williams in celebrating Joe Haden's interception Sunday:
Great moments need a family photo. pic.twitter.com/Ra0b6bpZLM
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) October 28, 2018
Williams was showing me this on his phone afterward, and I loved it as much as everyone in the vicinity. (Except my man Bud Dupree, who was way too far upfield to partake and was beating himself up over it.) And yet, Vince is way too smart and loves being on the field way too much to be trying stunts like that, then grabbing his knee in the same motion. The knee is fine (his other one was getting the ice Monday over an unrelated matter), but still.
• Steve Pearce as World Series MVP at age 35?
Man, that's too much. Good things really do happen to good people. All through his time with the Pirates, including his maturation through the minors, I thought of him as a football player wrapped in a baseball uniform. Not just for his brute strength but also for his bulldog mindset.
He's further evidence, by the way, that Dave Littlefield and Ed Creech -- for all their many failings as a GM/scouting director duo -- could draft circles around Neal Huntington and his guy. Remember, Pearce was only the second-best player they took that draft year, behind a certain other slugger:
Peearce!!!!! MVP
— andrew mccutchen (@TheCUTCH22) October 29, 2018
• Oh, and congrats to the Red Sox ... on having Major League Baseball's highest payroll at $228,398,860. And on beating the Dodgers, who had the third-highest payroll at $199,582,045.
Just waiting for the national baseball media guys to lecture us all again about how money doesn't matter in the only sport without a salary cap.
• Don't stop speaking up and acting out now on the Squirrel Hill shooting. Something like this can't pass like a national news cycle. This hit home. This hit our friends, our neighbors. Don't let anyone anywhere think for one second that this scumbag defines us by letting it fade.
Tonight, before faceoff of Penguins-Islanders, a collection will be held at all three of PPG Paints Arena's gates to benefit the victims' families. Thoughts and prayers are welcome and wonderful. Pittsburghers can and will do more.
