WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Sidney Crosby's shoulder was sore.
Or maybe it was his back, given how he's been carrying these Penguins through a quarter of the NHL schedule.
Whichever the case, the captain skated as if he'd been set ablaze all through this Tuesday night at Bell MTS Place. He bounced back immediately from an early ailment -- athletic trainer Chris Stewart appeared to be treating a shoulder or upper arm -- to flatten counterpart superstar Patrik Laine, to whirl and win countless 50/50 pucks, to set up teammates with the sweetest of setups and, of course, to do this ...
... only to see his teammates do so, so much less.
And then, that changed.
Riley Sheahan, Derek Grant and Zach Aston-Reese would score the final three goals, one more than their previous combined season total, including Aston-Reese's winner with 5:12 remaining, in a 4-3 rally over the Jets that simply had to be the most satisfying of the season. Because not only was there ACTUAL SECONDARY SCORING, but there also was grit galore -- big-time blocked shots, barging to the battle areas, in-your-face inspiration all over the rink -- the kind Mike Sullivan's been convinced for a while is coming.
Well, here it was. Listen to the man:
That, my friends, is a Sullivan unlike any I've seen all winter. That's the Sullivan who won those Stanley Cups his way. That's the Sullivan who's never stopped believing his way is the right way. And in the three hours before that rather passionate display -- OK, at least the final period and change -- he watched it play out.
He watched his latest fling-against-the-wall attempt at a fourth line -- Sheahan, Grant and recently recalled Garrett Wilson -- step up with the Penguins' second and third goals, the first a net-jammer by Sheahan ...
... and the next an equally unsightly long-range wrister by Grant:
Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg's goaltender, has been off his game for weeks. That shows on both goals, but especially the latter. Still, give marks to the coaching staff for stressing shots from all over creation, to the players for following through and, finally, to all concerned for making that count by forcing Hellebuyck to cough up rebounds for three hours.
"That one's on me," Hellebuyck brought up on his own when asked about the Jets blowing the lead. "I thought we played pretty well, but I've got to find a way to stop a weird knuckler. ... Man, it just sucks. Anything else I say would just be excuses."
The Penguins' recognition of all that might have been best evident on Aston-Reese's winner, not by his shot but by the one Phil Kessel took from an impossible spot in clear search of a rebound ...
And, because the puck additionally took a bounce off Blake Wheeler's skate, it wound up right where Aston-Reese would have set it on a tee.
"Phil made a great decision there, and I just went to the net and cleaned up," Aston-Reese told me. "But really, it was on all of us and the coaches because we were all talking about what we wanted to do out there. Actually, we've been talking about it for a long time now. It just seems like it's working finally."
Yep. That's 3-0-2 in the past five, accompanied by all kinds of welcome intangibles.
Let there be real competition for the third and fourth lines, not just selections by default. Something along that storyline occurred even within the context of this game, as Sullivan began leaning on his new fourth line at the expense of the third. So when the third -- Aston-Reese, Derick Brassard and Bryan Rust, but also Kessel on the right side -- went back on the ice, they got the job done.
Funny how that works.
"We all have to play a part," Wilson told me. "I think that's something we all take pride in, no matter what our role is or what line we're on."
Get this: When Crosby scored his beauty, that marked the dozenth goal in a row from him, Evgeni Malkin or the top power-play unit. Somehow, the team overall kept collecting points, but it couldn't last. Others needed to get involved eventually.
"They've been doing a lot of good things lately," Crosby insisted of the bottom six. "To see them chip in offensively is great. They deserve it, with how hard they work."
The man making that assessment deserved it most.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Sidney Crosby
Penguins center
Those who are late do not get fruit cup. He was there from the opening draw.
2. Garrett Wilson
Penguins winger
Led team with three hits, put up his first NHL point in his 40th career game with an assist on Grant's goal and had the second-best Corsi For rating on the team at 61.54.
3. Kris Letang
Penguins defenseman
Yeah, I saw Brandon Tanev's early short-handed goal, too. That had more to do with Kessel not being a defenseman than anything Letang did. What he did do was block a team-high three shots, set up the winning goal with a long breakout and log a game-high 25:54 of ice time. And incidentally, it was his 704th NHL game, surpassing the franchise record for a defenseman.
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Patric Hornqvist, right winger, was diagnosed with a concussion and did not accompany the team on the trip. ... Matt Cullen, center, is out longer term with a lower-body injury. Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss four months after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
• Jets: Andrew Copp, forward, was diagnosed with a concussion last week and missed the game.
THE GOOD
Aston-Reese absolutely beamed when I asked one simple question:
Good for him. The kid hadn't scored since ... eh, I've got to look all of these guys up and that'll take forever. But he hasn't performed poorly overall, and he's a big, big part of the future for a franchise that could use someone of his age, spirit and skill level stepping up.
I wrote before this season that at least one of the two youngsters, Aston-Reese or Daniel Sprong, needed to do that for the Penguins to contend, preferably both. Sprong's back to not playing now, and he surely won't play in Denver after what transpired here. But Aston-Reese is out there, and he's beginning to look like that rookie who ripped four goals through his first 10 NHL games last season.
"I'm skating better, I feel more comfortable, I know that," he told me. "I think it's just a matter of time."
THE BAD
Sorry, but this otherwise upbeat outcome can't completely cover up this caliber of goaltending:
That's Mark Scheifele whipping a wrister past Casey DeSmith from the right dot, an angle that stopped being realistic for shooters in about 1968, and an angle DeSmith missed by so much he might as well have been halfway to Flin Flon. It gave the Jets a 3-2 lead with four minutes left in the second period, and it undid a whole lot of good DeSmith was watching unfold in front of him.
"Obviously, any goal that's a straight shot, I'm going to look at video on it and see what I could've done better," DeSmith said. "But a win's a win, and that's all I care about. The guys played a hell of a third period."
He did stop all eight shots in that period to finish with 24 saves, so he didn't buckle under the bad one.
THE PLAY
The two blocks in the final ticks of regulation, by Sheahan and Jake Guentzel, deserve their own Drive to the Net.
THE CALL
There wasn't anything controversial, but the most dubious decision of the evening undoubtedly belonged to Dustin Byfuglien when he sized up Jamie Oleksiak for one of his trademark seismic checks four minutes after the opening faceoff.
And what happens when Big Buff meets Big Rig?
Yeah, Byfuglien became so staggered he nearly collapsed, then needed his teammates' help pulling him over the boards before he entered the NHL's concussion protocol, apparently struck in the chin by Oleksiak's helmet. Byfuglien returned later in the period -- presumably after the league's crack supervisors asked him to count to zero to clear protocol -- but the impact appeared to have resonated. The bigger, badder Jets, who'd spoken openly in the morning about utilizing their size in this matchup, wound up doing nothing of the kind.
Not that Oleksiak wanted anything to do with this subject when I brought it up.
"I couldn't even tell you what really happened there," he told me. "The puck was in that area where you've really got to go for it, make sure it gets in their zone. ... It happened. Two big bodies collided."
In the other room, Wheeler had this observation: "That's two big boys. I don't think either of them feel very good after that one."
Byfuglien wasn't available for comment, but Paul Maurice described his player as having gotten "his chin caught on the helmet," adding, "There's no worry there. He got checked out. He's fine."
I won't stop at that. If the Penguins only have one physical force on the roster -- Jack Johnson can be that at times, too -- Oleksiak often makes up for a lot.
"Don't mess with the Rig," Johnson chimed in from the next stall with a wink.
THE OTHER SIDE
The Jets aren't unbeatable at Bell MTS Place, but it basically requires an act of the Manitoba Legislature to pull it off. Since early March of last season, they'd gone 17-2-2 in regular-season games here.
And then this.
They didn't exactly seem devastated by it, though, if only because -- although the hockey culture would never allow anyone to vocalize it -- they knew their goaltender had been the biggest culprit.
"We gave up five shots in the third period," Maurice said at the podium. "It's not like there was any tilt of the ice, by any means. I think we're going to like our chances better than theirs in the third. We gave up a tough one, then got a bad break that's in the back of your net, and that's it. Tough night."
The players were even more diplomatic.
"We got away from our game a little bit," Scheifele said. "We got pucks hung up at the red line, the blue line, and that team lives off turnovers. They made us pay."
THE SCHEDULE
The next game is Wednesday down in Denver, with a 9:38 p.m. Pittsburgh time faceoff. Neither team will have a morning skate. Mike Sullivan will speak to reporters at 7:30 p.m. The team will have Friday off.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins at Jets, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Nov. 27, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
