For the record, I'm not buying this "turning point" thing.
And with all due respect to the Penguins, particularly now that Patric Hornqvist might well be concussed again, this star-crossed season couldn't possibly pivot on a single game, no matter how uplifting that victory, no matter how many caps come raining down on the rink, no matter how stirring the speech that followed from the author of that hat trick.
Plain and simple, there have been too many problems exposed along the way.
"It won't be enough to have one good win or, now, even two of them," Jack Johnson was telling me late Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena, this after a 6-2, 60-minute smackdown of the Islanders. "It's nice that we did what we did against Colorado. It's nice what we did in this one. These are two pretty good teams we just beat. But what we need is to have a good December. We need a month of this."
Yep. And then another.
Which is why, as much as the atypically animated 18,440 on hand seemed to appreciate the two goals each from Kris Letang and Phil Kessel, the three points each from Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel, and a whole lot of other fanciness like this ...
... and for as much fun as it was to catch the captain smiling before the puck even made it to Kessel's blade ...
... what mattered most toward the collective cause, at least from this perspective, was what was happening at the far end. Because that's where the Islanders were held to 21 total shots, 14 of them at five-on-five, and 11 by the second intermission. Fifteen other New York attempts were blocked, and nine more missed.
That's some serious defense. And that, as ever in the Mike Sullivan system, is the root of all good things. Including the offense.
I asked the man himself to affirm that this has been the case over ... not just the past couple games but also over this broader 5-2-1 upswing, and he replied, "Yeah, I think it is. I think we've really improved in our own end. We're not giving up nearly as many chances as we had over our first 20 games. We're cutting down not only the quantity of chances but the quality, as well."
It was at this point, I'm fairly certain, that he noticed one of my eyebrows rise.
"On most nights. I mean, we have our hiccups," he then amended with a grin. "But certainly we're trending in the right direction in that regard."
They are. And that's not just a start. That's the start this group needs. Because they'll bring their tic-tac-toe more often than not. What they'll forget far too frequently is what leads to it.
What I'm starting to see, first and foremost, is a greater commitment. That might sound as blah as defending itself, but it's difficult to defend if you aren't, you know, trying. And with the exception of the second period the other night against the Avalanche and the entirety of that debacle Saturday against the Flyers, that's been steady.
By God, they've even hit people, as Garrett Wilson demonstrated with this loud check on Thomas Hickey:
Now there's some gap control.
"We're defending a lot harder," Sullivan said. "That makes us a lot harder to play against, including offensively."
What I'm also starting to see is adherence to Sullivan's most relentless admonition.
As one member of the front office told me after this one, "We've been on the right side of the puck for five of the last six periods. For our team, that's where everything gets going. You can tell right away if we're going to have a good night or not. At both ends."
Sullivan shared an identical stance, saying, "We're doing a much better job of staying underneath the puck in our end zone. And because of that, we're doing a much better job of staying above the puck in the offensive zone, reloading and making plays off the turnovers we force."
So did Crosby when I brought it up with him:
That reloading happened a ton against both the Avalanche and the Islanders. In Winnipeg, as well. It's actually been the source of the bulk of the Penguins' possession in the attacking zone.
What I'm also starting to see is why Jim Rutherford and others with the Penguins were bona fide delighted to get Marcus Pettersson in the Daniel Sprong trade. He roams the defensive zone like a left-handed Kjell Samuelsson, with a crazy-long reach, a gap awareness well beyond his 22 years, plus a coolness and accuracy in moving the puck once he does gain possession. Even on his backhand, he hasn't misfired.
"We've really liked what we've seen in the first couple games," Sullivan said. "He's really effective at covering his ground, and he plays the game with some bite when he gets into the battle areas. He crosschecks, he hacks and whacks ... he's hard to play against. And I think that's something our team really needed back there."
Needed more than a goal-scorer who had zero goals?
OK, OK, I'll digress. But I'll do so within the context that Pettersson, while no savior, arrives with just the right spirit at just the right time.
Because what I'm also starting to see, coincidence or not, is the brilliant version of Letang, a nearly comparable version of Brian Dumoulin -- the top pairing had matching 65.71 Corsi For percentages, if one can process that -- in addition to solid versions of the rest of the defense corps.
And finally, what I'm also starting to see, maybe most important of all, is steady goaltending from Casey DeSmith, with an occasional sprinkle of the spectacular on top:
That was in the first period on a New York power play. That puck got tipped by Matt Martin, tightly defended by Johnson. It then squirted through to Jordan Eberle, tightly defended by Olli Maatta. And despite all that tight defense, DeSmith's right toe made all the difference by both making the save and keeping it from Eberle.
I wrote from Denver a few days ago that the Penguins needed better goaltending to find more defensive confidence and that, in turn, if they ever regained their defensive confidence, they'd start scoring again.
Well, they aren't there yet. Long way to go before anything's proven. And now, they've got a long road ahead in the literal sense in flying to Ottawa, Long Island and Chicago for the next three games. If the Senators pump another half-dozen by them Saturday night, as happened on the previous visit two weeks ago, all this is moot.
But the path, the purpose is unmistakably clear: These Penguins don't look old or slow or top-heavy or lazy or unfocused or pick-a-common-criticism to anyone when they perform this way.
Not even to defensive maven Barry Trotz, whose response to my question might have made for the evening's most compelling observation on this count:
Catch that one part?
"When that other team's working, they're a good hockey team, and they aren't going to give you much. They make you force your way into the hard areas."
Forget the "turning point." Someone stitch that onto a banner instead, and hang it over the entryway to the ice.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Islanders, PPG Paints Arena, Dec. 6, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
