COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Matt Murray was saying the other day after practice that he had one objective Tuesday: Don't give them a reason to fire that damn cannon.
Coming off a particularly rough night in rainy South Philly, the 24-year-old was lamenting the life of an NHL goaltender. Allowing a goal in a road building in the league is particularly tough, he was saying. Music blares, spotlights are shined and the poor goalie has to fish the puck out of the net. Just imagine doing that, as he did Saturday, in front of 70,000 with fireworks? It can be humbling.
But, here, in the capital of Ohio they take it next level. They celebrate each goal by firing a Civil War-era cannon — it doesn't matter where you are, you don't just hear this thing, you feel it reverberate through your rib cage. With Artemi Panarin staying and Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel coming in, the Blue Jackets are banking that Nationwide Arena will soon sound like the third Battle of Bull Run.
A shutout would have been great, of course, but Murray thought if he could just limit the cannon fire, he'd give his team the best chance to win Tuesday night. Mission accomplished. Murray was far from perfect but the cannon was only fired three times. And to be fair, one of those came on a goal that was disallowed. After much consternation about the goalie's glove hand and his confidence, Murray did his part in the Penguins' much-needed 5-2 win with the help of 16 of his teammates.
"It says a lot about our character," Jared McCann was telling me. "Guys stepped up."
Character win? Team win? Statement win? Whatever it was, it was two points against a team that some believed had surpassed the Penguins after their trade deadline haul. Jack Johnson was not one of them.
"I didn't forget about us," he said. "We're a helluva team in this room."
While Carolina and Montreal -- Pittsburgh's competition for the final playoff spots -- were scoring lopsided victories, the Penguins had to dig a little deeper to beat the Blue Jackets. It wasn't easy and it certainly wasn't pretty. But, in the end, they were able to leapfrog Columbus and get back into the top eight.
In a game with a playoff-like feel, the Penguins persevered because they got timely saves from Murray, plus one very timely goal from McCann. And, well, they got some bounces. Given the injuries that have beset the Penguins in recent days, including two more on Tuesday, perhaps they were due for some good luck.
"I knew this team before I even got here," said Johnson, who made a triumphant return to the city where he played six-plus seasons. "You don't win as many times as they have without (resolve). It's great to see it, but I'm not surprised by the guys in the room."
That any late drama was required was surprising given the Penguins' fast start. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead on first-period goals from Jake Guentzel and McCann, and one by Evgeni Malkin early in the second that silenced the sellout crowd which came to see Duchene, Dzingel and the new-look Blue Jackets.
Columbus, though, made things interesting when Oliver Bjorkstrand and Cam Atkinson scored 2:14 apart in the second period, the latter coming on a power play. Then, with 12 seconds remaining in the period, Dominik Simon took an ill-timed holding penalty in the offensive zone. Surely, the Penguins were in store for yet another collapse. Just like the one Saturday night in Philadelphia, right? Wrong.
With two seconds left in the period, Murray denied Atkinson from atop the right circle and Matt Cullen got a 200-foot clear:
That left Columbus with a mere 1:48 of power-play time and a clean sheet of ice to work with against the Penguins penalty killing unit that had given up four power-play goals over the previous two games.
Oh, the Blue Jackets had their chances. First, Nick Foligno rang a shot off the post. Then, Justin Schultz, who doesn't usually play on the PK, must have forgotten he was shorthanded because the defensemen was a little too eager to join the rush. His miscue resulted in a rarely seen 3-on-0 break on a power play. Instead of a sure goal though, the Blue Jackets couldn't even muster a shot after Atkinson -- who has 35 goals on the season -- inexplicably passed up a sure tap-in:
That up there was the turning point in the game, even if it was none of the Penguins' own doing.
"Yeah, you've got to kill it," said Johnson, who once again shined in the absence of Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin. "I thought our goaltender was our best killer. He's always got to be your best killer to get out of it."
Somehow, some way, the Penguins got out of it.
Clinging to a one-goal lead and down to 11 forwards and five defensemen after losing both Bryan Rust and Chad Ruhwedel, the Penguins -- from the first line to the fourth -- battened down the hatches in the third. The Blue Jackets had just seven of their 23 shots -- the second-fewest the Penguins have allowed this season -- over the final 20 minutes.
"We defended very hard as a group of five out there," Mike Sullivan was saying. "Obviously, the guys stepped up through some of the injuries, played more minutes than probably they're accustomed to. But I thought they did a good job."
And then with 6:33 remaining, McCann ended the drama with his second of the game when he chipped a puck mid-air past Scott Harrington, springing himself on a 2-on-1 break with Nick Bjugstad. McCann, the "other guy" acquired from the Panthers earlier this month, looked off Bjugstad.
"I just felt I had a better opportunity just to shoot the puck," he explained.
Good thing he did, too. McCann fired a wrister under the arm of Sergei Bobrovsky for his 13th of the season and fifth since coming to Pittsburgh. It was the kind of secondary scoring that is crucial to any team's postseason success; the kind that the Penguins sorely lacked last spring.
"You've got to get contributions throughout your lineup and when you get that, that's a great formula for success," Sullivan was saying. "Jared's a guy that's shown an ability to score. He can really shoot the puck. And so I think he's gaining confidence with each goal that he scores. He, obviously, had a big night for us and we're going to need that from all our guys moving forward."
Of course, one win — no matter how big or how impressive — doesn’t mean that Murray or the Penguins are “back.” But with 19 games remaining in the regular season, including two more against these Blue Jackets in the next 10 days, the Penguins would be wise to remember the resolve and resiliency that was required Tuesday.
"It's intense," Johnson was saying. "I think every game from here on out is going to have a similar playoff-type atmosphere. Points are so tight. I don't remember any point in my carer where it was this tight. From teams that are just out of it, to teams that are in first ... from here on in, it's going to be intense."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Jared McCann
Penguins left winger
McCann might be on his third team in four years but it appears he's found a home in Pittsburgh.
2. Jack Johnson
Penguins defenseman
This win was particularly personal for the veteran defenseman, who was booed during his tribute video in his return to Columbus. He got the last laugh with an assist on Crosby's empty-net goal.
3. Sidney Crosby
Penguins center
The captain sealed the deal with his empty-net goal but his one-touch assist on Guentzel's 29th of the season in the first period was pretty special.
THE GOOD
With the trade deadline in the rearview, the official sprint to the finish line began in earnest.
In addition to Murray, the Penguins also saw some very encouraging signs from three of their slumping forwards: Malkin, Phil Kessel and Patric Hornqvist. As has been stated ad nauseam, how far the Penguins will go this season will depend on their best players being their best players. By no means were any of the three great, but they were plenty good and not just offensively.
Malkin now has his second two-game goal-scoring streak in 10 days. Just 1:15 into the second period, Malkin scored on a slap shot from in front of the Penguins' bench that somehow beat Bobrovsky. Was it a bad goal? Absolutely. But no worse than the goal he scored Saturday against the Flyers' Brian Elliott. They don't ask how, only how many. It was his 20th of the season and the 11th time in his 13-year career that he's reached the 20-goal mark.
Kessel picked up the secondary assist on Malkin's goal, but most impressive was his compete level. There was no questioning Kessel's effort on back-checks or decision making with the puck. Sullivan -- gasp! -- even agreed.
"I thought Phil had a great game tonight," the coach praised. "He played hard both ends of the rink. I thought he competed down low. I thought Geno's line did some good things. I think Geno's line is starting to get some traction."
Well, it's about time. Hornqvist, who went 13 games without a point coming off his latest concussion, now has a two-game points streak after he assisted on Guentzel's goal with some strong cycling down low.
THE BAD
We could go with Simon and Ruhwedel for taking second-period penalties in the offensive zone. "That doesn't help for sure," Sullivan was saying.
True, but what should be more concerning is the way the Blue Jackets were able to take liberties with the Penguins. They were a heavy team before and they just got a whole lot heavier with the the acquisition of Adam McQuaid. The bruising defenseman destroyed Rust with a big hit in his Columbus debut. But at least the hit on Rust was clean. Rust was guilty of reaching for a puck instead of living to fight another day.
What can't happen though is some of the other stuff that went unchecked by the officials or by the Penguins, who had just one power play over the first 57 minutes.
In the second period, Brandon Dubinsky dropped Schultz with this open-ice hit with under seven minutes remaining in the second:
No idea how Schultz didn't get injured after going airborne. Not saying it was a dirty play either, but there was no response.
Then, with a little over a minute to play in the second period, Anderson was at it again. While Boone Jenner got involved with Patric Hornqvist in a scrum, Josh Anderson-- think Tom Wilson-lite -- dumped Crosby on his rear behind the Columbus net:
Hornqvist was so incensed -- imagine that? -- Sullivan could be seen calming him down on the bench.
McCann said afterward that the Penguins' rivalry with the Blue Jackets wasn't as "intense" as that with the Flyers. That might be, but it's getting there. And it's not going to be any more pleasant when these two teams meet again on March 7 and 9. Erik Gudbranson might have his faults but, man, the Penguins could have used him Tuesday.
THE PLAY
Matt Sunday's View from Ice Level takes a deeper dive into McCann's game-winner.
THE CALL
The NHL believes that it solved the great goaltender interference conundrum last March when it mandated that all reviews be handled by the league office in Toronto. While it has streamlined the process, it never really got to the heart of the question: "What is goalie interference?"
The fact of the matter is that many reviews could seemingly be decided by the flip of a coin. Such was the case with 4:44 remaining in first period when the Blue Jackets and, I'm pretty sure, most of the 18,766 in attendance believed that Seth Jones had scored on this slap shot:
However, the league concurred with Sullivan that his goalie had been interfered with after Jenner, who was jostling with Schultz in the blue paint, appears to have inadvertently tripped Murray with his skate. Credit Andy Saucier with an assist. The Penguins' video coach is now 7-for-13 on challenges, including 4-4 on goalie interference.
I asked Murray if he was confident that the goal would be overturned. "I would have been pretty shocked if that one wasn't called back," he said.
Not so sure about that one. Again, given the Penguins' misfortune, they were due for a break.
THE OTHER SIDE
The Blue Jackets had their full complement of skaters on Tuesday after they welcomed Dzingel and McQuaid into their lineup. And yet they couldn't score on a 3-on-0 and couldn't beat a Penguins team that started the game without its top three defensemen and lost another, Ruhwedel, in the second period.
“There’s some good stuff there (offensively), but that’s a wounded team on the back end that we played tonight and we didn’t take advantage of it,” John Tortorella said. “We did not develop enough forechecking.”
The one Blue Jackets newcomer who didn't play Tuesday was the one who might hold Columbus' key of winning that elusive first playoff series: Keith Kinkaid. The former Devils goaltender, who is 6-3-2 in his career against the Penguins, did not even dress.
Instead, Bobrovsky started and the Penguins -- as they've been known to do -- exposed the two-time Vezina winner. Bobrovsky allowed four goals on 26 shots. He had shutouts in his previous two starts but ended up giving four goals for the first time since Jan. 31.
Surely, his team will be better when the newcomers are fully acclimated, but Tortorella says the Blue Jackets have to remember what made them successful in the first place.
“I think we better understand that we need to get in, and we’re not going to skill our way in,” Tortorella said. “No matter what the transactions were, we need to stay true to our identity or we won’t have a chance.”
THE DATA
• With his goal, Guentzel now has 17 points (12 goals, five assists) in 17 games, playoffs included, against the Blue Jackets.
• Kessel had a 58.62 Corsi For percentage at 5v5 with Malkin on the ice.
• The Blue Jackets' 23 shots were nearly 10 fewer than their season average (31.8).
• Crosby's assist was his 50th of the season. It's the eighth time in his career he's done that. His best season was 84 assists in 2006-07.
• Because of the injuries to the depleted defense corps, Zach Trotman -- in his first NHL action in almost 18 months -- ended up playing 18:08.
THE INJURIES
• Rust, forward, left the game in the first period with a lower-body injury.
• Ruhwedel, defenseman, left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury.
• Kris Letang, defenseman, has an upper-body injury and is day to day.
• Brian Dumoulin, defenseman, has a concussion and is day to day.
• Olli Maatta, defenseman, has a separated left shoulder and is expected to miss a month. He’s on IR.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's lines/pairings for this game:
Guentzel–Crosby–Hornqvist
Aston-Reese–Malkin–Kessel
McCann–Bjugstad–Rust
Wilson–Cullen–Simon
Johnson–Schultz
Petterson–Ruhwedel
Riikola—Trotman
• And for the Blue Jackets:
Panarin—Duchene—Atkinson
Dzingel—Dubois—Bjorkstrand
Foligno—Jenner—Anderson
Dubinsky-Nash-Robinson
Nuutivaara—Jones
Werenski—Savard
Harrington—McQuaid
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to practice at noon on Wednesday and at 11 a.m. on Thursday. They will play at Buffalo on Friday and at Montreal on Saturday. Sunday and I will handle the game in Western New York while DK will be off to La Belle Province.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our team page for everything, including View from Ice Level, and Taylor Haase's Drive to the Net on Johnson's return to Columbus.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins at Blue Jackets, Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 26, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS____________________
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