Two fans clapped.
I distinctly heard them off to the left of the PPG Paints Arena press box, a few sections over and way down below. And given that there were no more than smatterings of teal through the place, it's plenty likely they were fans of the local team.
Good for them. Hey, if being down by three goals at the first intermission and being dominated across the board draws anyone's applause ... free country.
Two fans left.
As I was walking the main concourse, two fans, one wearing a No. 66 sweater and the other brandishing car keys about to be used, exited by the Mario Lemieux statue. Arena policy is, once you leave, you can't re-enter.
Good for them, too. Turned out they'd miss next to nothing by tuning out the final two-thirds of the Penguins' dreadful, almost deathly 4-0 loss to Sharks on this Thursday night.
I've got next to nothing to add myself, to be honest.
There are times when my stance on this eclectic collective is more in harmony with those two fans who clapped, others when it's tempting to focus on something more fun. And unfortunately for the subjects at hand, that back-and-forth painfully mirrors reality. These guys can be fun, fast and engaging. Then, the next game, often even the next shift, they can be slow, sloppy and ... everything they vomited out in the first few minutes of this latest mess.
So, in that spirit, rather than attempt my own cohesiveness, here's a vomiting out, if you will, of 15 random rants, one for each of the Penguins' 15 losses this season that came right after a victory:
• If there's a better team in the NHL than the Sharks, I haven't seen it. There's definitely no one in the West, with all due respect to the Jets and Predators. (The Flames are phony.) And I wouldn't even take the Lightning over them, glitz and all, if only because the Sharks perform with more of a sense of common purpose.
See this?
That was Tomas Hertl's first goal on the night, his fifth in two meetings with the Penguins, and it was boring to the point of being beautiful. Brent Burns drops to one knee for a bomb, Joe Pavelski hovers low for the tip -- he's one of the best at that -- and Hertl darts from between the dashes to bury the rebound.
That's how an elite power play works. And the italics are intentional.
It's akin to a football offense lining up in the Power-I, selling out their strategy to the whole stadium, then bulldozing right through the defense because they knew they couldn't -- no, that they wouldn't -- be stopped.
• Number of rebound opportunities created by the Penguins on Martin Jones, regardless of strength: Zero.
Seriously, not a one. All night long.
• Here's how an elite power play doesn't work, italics equally intentional:
That's the artist formerly known as Phil Kessel attempting a dipsy-doodle at the San Jose blue line against Burns. And there is so much bad within that concept, even beyond Kane soaring the other way for the way-too-easy finish on Casey DeSmith, chiefly that the Sharks had shown on the previous rush they were spying Kessel as the standard late-man-on-the-rush. That's why Burns ignored all other comers and lasered on Kessel.
The questions are still so many ...
Why was the puck not sent deep, as Kessel and all power-play guys are instructed when the blue line looks unfriendly?
Impossible to say, as Kessel's been seldom seen or heard over this goal slump that's now 11 games long, though he did speak after this loss.
“Struggling," he'd say of the slump. "What can I say? Just not going in.”
Where was Kris Letang, the lone defenseman?
He was a complete standstill, setting a non-moving pick on Kane to clear room for Kessel, whose zone entry had already been posted on a neon billboard. Which would be a fine formation if he weren't, to repeat, the lone defenseman.
Why was the first power-play unit not replaced by the second power-play unit -- which has looked a lot more powerful, like that San Jose example up there -- when there was a neutral-zone faceoff 1:01 into the penalty and the Kane goal came 23 seconds later?
Well, Mike Sullivan answered that in the next period in the most emphatic way he could, by breaking up the top unit in two forms: Justin Schultz was placed alongside Letang at the point, bumping Kessel to the bench, and Jake Guentzel was added up front, bumping Patric Hornqvist to the bench.
Sullivan never seems to give up on his big five, though, so there should be skepticism that it'll stick.
• Can't help but wonder if Hornqvist isn't getting his best shot to break out. Not to lay his 15-game goal-scoring slump on Sullivan or anyone else, but he's just so, so pivotal to what the Penguins do that it couldn't hurt to try him in a top-six role at even-strength to get his confidence back. As both Hornqvist and Sullivan have been acknowledging for weeks now, once he scores, they come in bunches. So bring on the bunches.
Seeing more of that familiar snarl is encouraging, too:
Patric Hornqvist barks at the Sharks' Brenden Dillon. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS• Hold off on cementing that new third line: When Nick Bjugstad, Jared McCann and Hornqvist were on the ice at five-on-five, a span of 7:01, they failed to create a single scoring chance while conceding seven.
Putting this on the record now: McCann had looked damned comfortable at center. No need to mess with that.
• Kane's quite the character, going all the way back to his Winnipeg days. He's crazy fast and skilled, but he's also just plain crazy at times, and that was clearly the case when he was staring toward the Penguins' bench during the TV timeout that led to Sidney Crosby and Tanner Pearson getting into sizable scraps and, ultimately, to Sullivan being ejected.
The explanation was a riot:
That raucous on the rink that led to the Haley-Crosby fight? Well, @evanderkane_9 is taking the blame, or credit, for it. #SJSharks pic.twitter.com/EhoOpdMqc3
— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) February 22, 2019
When he was a kid with the Jets, Kane made a habit of boarding the team bus in less-than-formal attire. That so infuriated Dustin Byfuglien that he once took all of Kane's clothes and tossed them into the showers minutes before boarding, so he'd have to show up either nude or soaking wet. Created quite the spat up there.
I'll say this for Kane: When Rick Tocchet was here, he pushed hard for the Penguins to acquire him. Felt he'd have been a perfect fit.
• The Penguins' response to Kane was appropriate.
• Try to imagine how hard it must be for Jim Rutherford to evaluate his roster with two hugely important players, Kessel and Hornqvist, putting up zeroes night after night. On one hand, as Rutherford told our site yesterday, it's logical to presume it won't last. On the other, time is ticking, and making the playoffs is the only priority at the moment.
From everything our staff's heard, goaltending won't be added. The Penguins' people are openly defiant that they have what they need in Matt Murray and DeSmith. They sound almost as confident in their defense, in part because there's a fair chance Olli Maatta's separated left shoulder will mend in time for the playoffs. And even up front, where they'll acknowledge their biggest impact would be on the wings ... yeah, all of that would be solved by Kessel and Hornqvist just being Kessel and Hornqvist.
• One member of the front office -- not Rutherford -- strongly suggested to me in the past week that the default mode will be to make a move. Not just to make it, but because there's a sentiment that more is needed. That official went no further.
• Never have I heard Rutherford sound more determined to hold onto his first-round draft pick. Here's hoping he sticks to it. I'm not seeing a ton of upgrades out there over Kessel, Hornqvist, Maatta or either goaltender. And all the Penguins could offer for an impact player is a high draft pick.
• While everyone else keeps freaking out about Jack Johnson's defense -- and he did contribute to Hertl's second goal with a poor decision to poke up at the Pittsburgh blue line -- I'll keep it squarely on his lack of offense. Advanced analytics measure possession equally at all points on the rink, and Johnson's inability to get shots through to the net still stands out for me as the greatest contributor to his weak numbers.
The most incredible Johnson stat you'll see all winter is this: Over 61 games, he's been responsible for zero high-danger scoring chances. And just one scoring chance off the rush of any degree.
I'll keep repeating this into infinity, so dig in: He hasn't been a good fit offensively, within a system that requires defensemen to join the attack, far more than he's been an albatross defensively.
• The most common theme in the locker room following a loss in recent weeks has been to stress the positive, lament the two lost points and move on.
"Just turn the page," was how Matt Cullen worded it after this one.
That mindset originates with Sullivan, and I respect it. There's precious little benefit in allowing losing to fester. That's how one or two losses slip into a full-blown streak.
At the same time, if you'll pardon the potential over-analysis, I'm also not feeling that heightened sense of urgency one might expect from what's now very, very clearly an actual race to qualify for the playoffs. Maybe that'll change. Maybe Sullivan will adjust as he goes. All I'm saying is that it isn't palpable right now.
• Zach Aston-Reese is way too smart a kid to take one, let alone two offensive-zone penalties. And flagrant, obvious ones at that, for tripping Kane on both occasions. One thing gets Aston-Reese in trouble at this level: It's when he stops skating. He can skate in the NHL, but he occasionally won't. And because he's wired to try as hard as he does, he'll use the stick to compensate.
• Murray will start the outdoor game in Philadelphia, from what I was told at the arena on this night, mostly because of the 50-save performance he just made last week across the parking lot from Lincoln Financial Field.
This is probably a good thing. Pageantry aside, the last thing this group needs is a No. 1 goaltending controversy. It's been barely a few days since the last time Murray was excellent.
• This will be the Penguins' fifth outdoor game, and it can't be just be me that wonders if anyone really cares. There's now a 100 percent chance of rain Saturday night in South Philly, creating the worst-case scenario for the sheet of ice, and two teams in a playoff race -- don't laugh, the Flyers are only seven points out -- will have to play in slush at best, with less than 1 percent of the nation's TV sets tuned in.
Do the Winter Classic and Canada's Heritage Classic. Ditch the rest.
Whatever. I'll get back to you from out there, umbrella and all.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Sharks, PPG Paints Arena, Feb. 21, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
