DENVER -- It's not the goaltending. It's never the goaltending.
But what if it actually is?
Sorry, hate to scrape down to the lowest common denominator of hockey observations, but the cold fact is that the Penguins are nearly a third of the way into the 2018-19 season and still flailing at the sport's most important position. And it isn't just about Matt Murray anymore, since he's out for a few weeks with what I believe is a bone fracture. It's about Casey DeSmith once again looking like a journeyman backup and, now, fair or not, it's about Tristan Jarry not exactly looking like the solution, either.
No, Jarry isn't singularly at fault for the Avalanche prevailing, 6-3, on this Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center. He did get beaten on three of Colorado's first 13 shots, five of 25 overall, and that did, most unfortunately, coincide with wasting a stirring Sidney Crosby natural hat trick. But again, Jarry wasn't singularly at fault.
At the same time, neither was he why the Penguins could have pulled this off. Neither did he contribute much toward what would have been a victory even more satisfying than the one the previous night in Winnipeg.
And that's the part, at least from this perspective, that's kept your favorite team from ever finding any real footing to date.
Not that anyone could ever discuss such a thing, of course:
See what I mean?
I'm going to repeat this yet again, purely for resonation: Jarry wasn't singularly at fault. But this is a team that's starting to put stuff together. They're attacking and defending harder than at any stage of the season. They're fighting for 50/50 pucks, they're sacrificing to block shots, they're going to the net and, ever so gradually, it's clicking.
All except in the most critical area.
And at any level of the sport, if you show me a hockey team that's lacking high-caliber goaltending, I'll show you a hockey team that's going to over-compensate for it.
Want to see a group trying way too hard to compensate for its goaltender?
Here, this is Matt Sunday's capture of Colorado's second goal:
Sometimes a still image tells the story best, right?
The moving images tell it, too.
This was the Avalanche's first goal, by defenseman Samuel Girard:
Sweet setup by Mikko Rantanen, the NHL's leading scorer, there. He undressed Kris Letang on the rush, then went tape-to-tape. But nothing in the equation prevents Jarry from stepping forward and taking away the shooting angle -- of a defenseman, I'll remind -- who's got no other options there. Instead, Jarry's beaten short-side.
This was the Avalanche's second goal:
Jarry's clipped by Sven Andrighetto skating by, though replays would rule Brian Dumoulin did the pushing. Still, we're talking about a low-percentage shot by another defenseman who seldom scores, Erik Johnson, and Jarry's heels are again deep in the blue paint. Here, too, nothing prevented him from stepping forward and controlling his own fate.
The Avalanche would go up, 3-0, on the goal Sunday captured above. He couldn't have stopped this one, a backdoor tap-in, but he did cough up a hairball of a rebound to sustain the possession.
So Crosby scores three goals in a total of 5:53 spanning the second and third periods -- yawn -- to tie it up.
Think he was pumped?
Another Sunday special:
Think the Penguins should have pulled this out?
Well, never in franchise history had they lost when one of their own had a natural hatty, according to local hockey historian Bob Grove, and they'd won 38 in a row in which one of their own had a hatty of any kind, dating back to 2007.
Didn't matter. Because at 10:05, Gabe Landeskog scored the winner:
I know, I know, it's not Jarry's fault. The shot flicks off Juuso Riikola's shaft, ricochets downward, alters direction, then skips by. I'm not new to this. I get when it isn't on the goaltender.
At the same time, Jarry's heels again are so deep into the paint that he doesn't give himself the best chance to fend off something that unlucky. Landeskog's a shooter. He'd cut between the hashes. He was going to gun it. And Jarry sat back and waited to see how it'd unfold.
This has been an issue of his going all the way back to juniors. He has the athleticism to play in the NHL, maybe even to start. But his stance is so passive that a shot that should beat him does beat him. And in turn, when that happens, once he does get around to being aggressive and attacking the shooter, this happens:
That's Carl Soderberg with the Avalanche's final goal.
I had a talk with Jarry about all of this, and it's safe to say he doesn't see anything amiss, at least not outwardly.
On Landeskog's winner: "It changed directions and went in. I don't know what else to tell you."
On his overall showing: "I made some solid saves and, obviously, the fourth one, you always want back. It changed directions. I just couldn't find it. It goes in. It's tough. But it's something I think I should have, and I'll try to get it next time."
On staying so deep in the paint: "I just want to give myself the best chance to make every save. I think coming out a little further can help, but sometimes you have to stay a little deeper. It's just managing my ice."
On not coming through for Crosby: "We want to win every game. Tonight, I thought we gave ourselves a chance. We just came up short."
I'll shut up about this forbidden topic after this: Ask yourself which game the Penguins won this season primarily because of goaltending.
I did that with a handful of people who are around the team daily, and we all agreed it was just one: Murray in Toronto, way back in the third week of October. And even then, there was hemming and hawing because the Penguins were generally very good.
That's not good enough. This team, and especially this captain, deserve better. And it might be time for a certain old keeper to get on the horn about that.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Sidney Crosby
Penguins center
This was his 11th hatty, his fourth natural. But never mind that: He's got 13 goals in his past 15 games. As Sullivan worded it, "Sid tried to will us a win with his effort."
2. Nathan MacKinnon
Avalanche winger
A goal and three assists for the other well-known native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. More on his winning rush below.
3. Nikita Zadorov
Avalanche defenseman
Dude had eight hits, at least three of them seismic. No one wants to face that the night after playing in another country. It adds up.
THE INJURIES
• Patric Hornqvist, right winger, was diagnosed with a concussion and did not accompany the team on the trip. He's been skating the past two days in Pittsburgh, Sullivan disclosed here, and the team is 'encouraged' by his progress.
• Matt Cullen, center, is out longer-term with a lower-body injury.
• Matt Murray, goaltender, is out longer-term with a lower-body injury.
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss three more months with a fractured leg.
THE GOOD
Good? Nah, this guy's the best:
And the most humble:
THE BAD
It sure would be nice if the Penguins' other resident superstar contributed at even-strength.
Get this: The entire November schedule just passed without Evgeni Malkin recording a solitary five-on-five goal. He did have three goals and eight assists through 14 games, which is hardly awful, but all three goals and three of the assists came on the power play, leaving just five assists to show for the rest.
This isn't deeply troubling, obviously. Neither is his output here and in Winnipeg, where he combined for zero points, three shots and a minus-3 rating. But it does mess, maybe more than anything else, with Sullivan's options for line construction. Because if Malkin isn't producing, then the second line isn't producing. And if that's the case, then we see weird, no-chance combos like the ones sent out in this game, in which Bryan Rust, owner of one goal, was on Malkin's right wing, and Phil Kessel was bumped back to the third line.
Blame Sullivan for those all anyone would want, but it's incumbent on Malkin to create the most meaningful depth.
THE PLAY
The winning goal wound up fluky, but it began with a breathtaking burst from MacKinnon near center red. Both Derick Brassard and Dominik Simon appeared to be keeping pace before a single sonic boom had him all alone hitting the Pittsburgh blue line. That backed off both defensemen, Jamie Oleksiak and Riikola, so his dish to Landeskog proved doubly disjointing.
Riikola had one choice, as he'd tell me: "The guy's cutting right to the middle. I can't let him shoot there."
So he went into block formation, dropped his right knee and ... oh, you know.
"Just caught my stick," Riikola said with a shake of the head. "Nothing you can do."
THE CALL
The officials blew two in the final minute, the linesmen missing an obvious icing, then Kris Letang getting flagrantly slew-footed by Landeskog at the end boards. Letang fumed and cracked his stick across the post when the latter resulted in MacKinnon's empty-netter.
But that was with 29 seconds left, and another call earlier was more pivotal.
Jack Johnson had three teeth chipped, he confirmed for me via forced smile, by the high stick of Colorado's Alexander Kerfoot 1:08 into the second period. But, because he didn't bleed -- teeth don't carry blood, as four of five dentists will attest -- Kerfoot was assigned a mere minor. Had there been blood, per the most byzantine rule in professional sports, it would have been a double-minor.
"I'd rather have bled, believe me," Johnson told me.
Johnson pleaded his case with referee Francois St. Laurent, to no avail, presumably because he went strictly by the blood rule rather than applying very much allowable common sense regarding responsibility for one's stick.
The score was 1-0 at the time, and a more appropriate call might have made a difference.
THE OTHER SIDE
Neither team would come equipped with an excuse. The Avalanche, too, were playing back-to-backs, and they had to travel just as far to get here, having won in Nashville the previous night. But then, they've taken care of business wherever they've been, now 10-4-2 here and 5-2-2 on the road.
And that's largely because they've got the NHL's best line in Mikko Rantanen, MacKinnon and Landeskog, who now rank, in order, first, second and fifth on the league's scoring list with a combined 112 points. On this night, they'd account for eight of those.
Best line Sullivan's seen this season?
"Yes," he replied, flatly. "Yes."
For MacKinnon, his four points coming on the same sheet of ice as "one of my best friends" seemed plenty special on that front alone.
"Sid getting a hat trick here was pretty cool, but I'm glad we found a way to win," MacKinnon said. "Sid's been doing it for 15 years, and he's the best in the world. Whenever you get a chance to play a guy like that, it's cool."
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will get today off -- it's officially listed as a travel day -- then resume practicing Friday, 11 a.m., in Cranberry. The next game is Saturday, 7:08 p.m., against the Flyers at PPG Paints Arena.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything, but especially Sunday's outstanding View from Ice Level today. Not to be missed.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins at Avalanche, Denver, Nov. 28, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS