There is a certain Penguins center who has been struggling mightily of late. There has even been suggestion that he's been unhappy with his role.
You know who I'm talking about, right?
Evgeni Malkin?
Maybe, but the same could be said for Derick Brassard.
The difference between the two is that Malkin, despite another horrid turnover Thursday night in the 5-2 win over the Red Wings at PPG Paints Arena, isn't going anywhere anytime soon. While Brassard's future, of course, is far less certain.
Since coming to Pittsburgh, Brassard has been an enigma, struggling to fit the role for which he was acquired. That's when he hasn't been injured, which has been too often. But Thursday, Jim Rutherford's grand experiment played out almost exactly as he envisioned when he pulled the trigger last February on the blockbuster deal that sent away Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves, most notably, for Brassard.
Skating as the third-line center with Phil Kessel on the right side and Tanner Pearson as his left wing, Brassard recorded his first multiple-goal game -- a redirect and an empty-netter -- in a Penguins uniform. Mike Sullivan called it their "best game since we've put them together."
Hard to argue, but also a small sample size.
At the 8:26 mark of the second period, the trio showed some chemistry to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead when Brassard, driving to the net, redirected a terrific Kessel pass off his left skate and past the Red Wings' Jimmy Howard:
"Just the plays that he made tonight was elite," Brassard said of Kessel. "It's up there with the tops in the league. He's going to win you some games like that. It's incredible the talent that he has. Tonight he came up big for our team."
That, above, was Brassard's fifth goal of the season and first in seven games. In 42 games with the Penguins, Brassard now has eight goals and 10 assists for 18 points. Needless to say that's not the kind of production they sought. But the hope is that Brassard, now healthy, can make Thursday's performance the norm instead of the exception.
"I thought we played better as a line tonight," said Kessel, who enjoyed a three-point night. "We had some chances. We moved the puck, found each other. If we continue like tonight and continue to grow, we'll be good."
As much as the Penguins need to get Malkin back on top of his game, they absolutely need Brassard to give them depth down the middle and to spread out the scoring over four lines. Both Rutherford and Sullivan have made no secret their preference to have Malkin and Kessel on separate lines.
But that only works if Brassard is productive as the third-line center.
"I think, potentially, they could be such a dangerous line," Sullivan said. "They're both really good players in their own right and they help us create a level of balance that makes it really difficult for our opponents."
To be fair, coming to the Penguins has been an adjustment for Brassard, who had played in the top six in his previous stops in Columbus, New York and Ottawa. If not for a couple of generational talents in Sidney Crosby and Malkin, he would be playing there in Pittsburgh too.
"We do think he's very capable," Sullivan said. "If he can just play his game and bring the same level of urgency and compete level and embrace the challenge, we think he can really help this team win. I know he's had his ups and downs, but I believe in him. I believe he's a really good player, a unique player, a guy who can make this team a pretty tough team to play against."
After a brief fling at left wing, Brassard seems to have embraced that challenge in recent games. Playing third-line center in Pittsburgh means fewer minutes than he was accustomed to with the Rangers and Senators, and far fewer offensive zone starts.
And though the Penguins' third line is hardly a typical grind line, it still means playing with an edge that Brassards's game has lacked. In addition to his two goals Thursday, Brassard threw five hits, second only to Brian Dumoulin.
Here, Brassard does a nice job of finishing on Frans Nielsen:
Obviously, the Penguins would rather possess the puck but if they're not possessing, a nicely timed check is one way to get it back.
"If the occasion is there, I'm going to do it," Brassard was telling me. "I don't know, it's probably killing more energy by doing that, but everyone has to do that. We have to be hard to play against. It's not about going through everyone but about chipping the body so the guys aren't playing on the move and playing the give-and-go game. But once in a while you have to do it."
Just as important, Brassard also won a couple of timely defensive zone draws early in the second period after the Penguins took consecutive icing penalties, including this one against Nielsen:
It's hardly glamorous work, but it's effective and what is required in that role.
Now will this line with Brassard and Kessel stay together?
"The reality is that lines are changing. They might change tomorrow, never know," Brassard said with a broad smile. "Don't ask me how the chemistry goes, we didn't do anything different, we just connected. Hopefully we can put a few games together. That would be good for our team. If we can chip in offensively once in a while, we're going to be tough to beat."
Brassard can become an unrestricted free agent in July and only Rutherford knows for sure what the future holds for his star-crossed center. But if this is it for Brassard, he says he's willing to do whatever it takes to win the ring that has eluded him in his 12-year career.
"It's all about the team," he said. "Playing on a really good team, I have a chance to do something special and I'll take that any day before playing 18 minutes somewhere else and not have a chance for the Stanley Cup."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Phil Kessel
Penguins right winger
Three-point night and Big Mac's for everyone. Can't beat that.
2. Derick Brassard
Penguins center
First two-goal game in black and gold.
3. Matt Murray
Penguins goaltender
Stopped 13 first-period shots to keep his team in the game early.
THE INJURIES
• Jamie Oleksiak, defenseman, missed his third game with a concussion. There was no update on his status, and there's no timetable for his return.
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to be out until mid-February with a fractured leg. Sullivan said earlier Thursday that Schultz is progressing as hoped.
THE GOOD
When given a chance, the Penguins' power play can still be quite good.
The key has been getting the opportunity. Entering the night, the Penguins had drawn just 101 power play chances, tied for the third-fewest in the league.
Some of that is due to the Penguins being unable to control territorially enough to draw penalties and some of that is due to the fact that opponents fear facing a power play that can send Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang over the boards.
On Thursday, that quintet showed what it's capable of, converting on its first two chances and going 2-for-3 on a pair of Kessel goals at 7:12 and at 18:58 of the second.
It was the fourth time that the Penguins' 11th-ranked power play has scored multiple goals in a game this season and the first since Nov. 15 against the Lightning, a span of 19 games.
THE BAD
As could have been expected after the four-day Christmas break, the Penguins came out flat to start the game and didn't appear to get their legs under them until the second period when they exploded for three goals.
The younger -- and faster -- Red Wings jumped on the Penguins early, outshooting their hosts by a 6-1 margin to start the game. That advantage was 10-5 when Dylan Larkin opened the scoring with a no-angle shot from the left circle that found a space over Murray's right shoulder. With Justin Abdelkader providing a screen, Murray never saw the puck.
Over the opening 20 minutes, Detroit held a 14-10 edge in shots and had a 57-43 advantage in Corsi For percentage. If not for Murray -- with a little help from a couple of posts and two crossbars -- the Red Wings could have easily been up by four.
Murray is now 4-0 since his return from a lower body injury and has given up just five goals.
"It's not easy coming off an injury like that," Murray said. "Just try to dive in head-first each and every day and improve every day. I think myself, and as a team, we're trending in the right direction. Seems to be better as we go."
THE PLAY
Other than the puck ending up in the Red Wings' net, Kessel's two power play goals were completely different.
The first one, however, stands out since Kessel scored on his backhand on a breakaway and not his trademark, back-legged wrist shot from the right circle.
Oh, but he was thinking about that shot.
After getting a step on Jonathan Ericsson, who nearly blew a tire on the play, Kessel did a remarkable job to sell the shot on a partial break.
Keeping his eyes up the whole time as if ready to unleash his lethal wrister, he froze Howard. Then, he cut across the goal mouth and slipped the puck between Howard's legs:
"I was fortunate it went in," Kessel said. "I'm not that great on breakaways. To score one is nice."
The goals were Kessel's sixth and seventh on the power play this season. He now has 16 power play points to rank 13th in the league, nine behind Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov. A year ago, Kessel led the league with 42 power play points, 12 of them coming on goals.
THE CALL
For a change, there was no call or controversy of any consequence.
However, it was nice to see the guys in stripes have some fun before the game. As they do before the opening faceoff, the officials meet up at center ice to wish each other a good game. On Thursday, the crew of Justin St. Pierre and Dean Morton added a different twist with some sort of choreographed secret handshake. Haven't seen that one before.
THE OTHER SIDE
The Red Wings couldn't have scripted a much better start than their first period when they peppered Murray with 14 shots and took a 1-0 lead on Larkin's goal, extending the All-Star center's points streak to 12.
However, the final 40 minutes showed the disparity in talent between the two teams that met in the 2008 and '09 Cup Final. Those days are now a distant memory in Detroit.
The Red Wings were out-shot 30-15 over the final two periods.
"I thought we had a great first. If anything, we had to keep it going," Larkin said. "Both teams had the break, so you can't use that as an excuse. So we just need to battle and battle for each other. When they're swarming around and they're getting rush chances, we have to come back a little harder and we need to find a way to get the puck out of the zone."
Thursday's loss was the Red Wings' third straight. They have won twice in their last 10 games.
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice today at noon in Cranberry before leaving for St. Louis, where they will face the Blues on Saturday night for the start of a three-game road trip. I'll be covering that one.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Red Wings, PPG Paints Arena, Dec. 27, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS