WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- It wouldn't have been Patric Hornqvist's fault.
It was early in the second period Sunday night at Bell MTS Place. Score was still tied. The Penguins' third line had begun moving toward the visitors' bench for a change on the fly, only it was far too sluggish to meet that criteria. The Jets, with their goaltender holding the puck deep in their zone, had a man motion for a fast breakout in hopes of capitalizing.
Just like that ... tic ... tac ... and there went Kyle Conner, sprung at the blue line.
Watch this below, and watch, in particular, that Penguins defenseman Kris Letang had also begun moving toward the bench for a change of his own:
It's as if Conner were being gifted a breakaway.
Except that's not how things have been working of late.
Now, go back up and watch that one forward who does change on the fly, that one forward who lives his life on the fly. Because that's where this game was truly won:
1. Hornqvist's zero-to-60 pursuit of Conner catches Letang's eye that something's amiss and, hey, he'd better reconsider leaving the ice.
2. Those two collapse around Conner, and Hornqvist knocks the puck off his blade, both players cautiously avoiding taking a penalty in the process.
Sorry, but it isn't more complicated than that.
Not this game. Not the strikingly similar 7-4 rout of the Wild the previous night in St. Paul, Minn. Not anything about how these Penguins suddenly, stirringly uncovered an identity that, until this two-game trip, appeared to have all but abandoned them.
And now?
"Patric made a great read and a great play," Letang would tell me later. "But everyone played well defensively, I thought. Everyone."
Not coincidentally, Hornqvist shared the same sentiment.
"It's not about me," he'd tell me. "It's everybody. Everybody's playing defense."
Imagine.
As I wrote a week ago after these two teams met in Pittsburgh, with Winnipeg looking at least twice as focused and energetic in prevailing, 4-1, what was needed from the Penguins' perspective was the focus and energy they lacked, but also the grasp that -- without Evgeni Malkin and three other injured regular forwards -- they needed to begin behaving as if their backs were against the figurative wall.
I'll now take it further: This way, building a foundation from the back out, creating offense from defense, fronting the puck at all points on the rink, prioritizing possession above all ... it works. Mike Sullivan's system, when applied with passion and precision and the right people, works.
But there'd better be the right people at hand.
Asked after this game if there's any correlation between the injuries and the Penguins finding themselves to this degree, Sullivan candidly replied, "Uh, probably."
Oh, my. Could have answered that a zillion different ways. He chose that one.
Continuing, he added, "I think it's pretty sound evidence that it's an effective way to win in this league. Regardless of who's in your lineup. We talk a lot about being hard to play against. I think this is the definition of it."
He paused, as if to accentuate that.
"It starts with your puck possession, the decisions that you make, the line changes you make that put your teammates in good positions, the back pressure on the puck so that we have numbers back. It's a lot of the little details that we talk about and show on film and practice every single day. But ..."
Another pause.
"For me," he repeated then, "this is the definition of being hard to play against. We’re starting to really form an identity that I think is a whole lot of fun. When everybody contributes the way this team has over the last week, it’s a real rewarding experience for everybody involved."
Look, I'm not here to flip an overwhelming positive into a negative. After what we'd all witnessed in the very early going, I'd never have conceived that the Penguins would claim both games of this opening trip, never mind by an aggregate 14-6. That's to the considerable credit of all involved, not least among them Jake Guentzel, Sam Lafferty and Zach Aston-Reese popping two goals apiece this night.
Thing is, I asked all three of those guys about this, as well, and they came back with carbon copies.
"I think defense leads to offense," Guentzel told me. "You've got to play a 200-foot game in this league, or you're going to get burned."
"That's what our coaches are preaching, and our best guys are playing that way," Lafferty told me. "We're just kinda following them, and it's working."
Following the best guys, indeed.
Aston-Reese, one of the more outspoken types in the room, probably put it best: "I know we're not trying to be as pretty. I mean, you can take it for what it's worth, but ... yeah."
I pressed Aston-Reese on this, and he cited Sidney Crosby.
"It obviously starts with Sid. You watch his 200-foot game, his backchecks are unbelievable. I think it's just about getting the cuteness out of our game. No cuteness."
Wait, what?
"It's about not trying to make plays that aren't there. That's one we hear from Sully a lot, so it's kinda stuck in my head. But it's not just me. Guys are taking full advantage of their opportunity. I think it's easier when you have a new guy come up for him to just buy in. You know what I'm saying?"
You bet.
"Coaches are preaching defense. They want us coming back hard. So we're buying in."
This all making sense yet?
Underscore this, please: I'm not here to bury Malkin. Or, for that matter, Nick Bjugstad, Alex Galchenyuk or Bryan Rust. Rather, I'm stressing what I sure hope -- and fully expect -- Sullivan and his staff will stress once those players hit the ice again. And that's that their way works ... when it's got the proper ingredients.
Are the Penguins better without Malkin?
Of course not. That's silly. But only if we're talking about a 33-year-old Malkin who doesn't adjust to his age, who doesn't set a more solid example, who doesn't fit with something that works now and, more important, worked when this franchise was still counting Cups.
Give Sullivan the highest of marks: This flat-line start, that Buffalo debacle in particular, could have called into question so much. That, plus a couple other games that followed, reminded painfully of the sweep by the Islanders. But instead of panicking, he hunkered down and, once these injuries hit, he found a handful of players willing and able to demonstrate, borrowing his words again, "the definition of being hard to play against."
A definition that now, much more clearly than a week ago, won't be wavering.
***premium***
• Goals, goals, goals. Almost too many to keep up. And yet, even the goals are beginning at the back end.
Watch Lafferty's first, at 8:31 of the second period, that made it 3-1 ...
... but emphasize how it starts: That's Lafferty at the opening frames of the clip outreaching, then outmuscling the Jets' Mathieu Perreault, clearing a path for Letang to rocket a breakout across to Joe Blandisi. Lafferty races down to capitalize on some clumsy lateral movement by Winnipeg's backup goaltender, Laurent Brossoit, but none of it happens without his defense.
"I've always taken pride in that part of my game," Lafferty replied when I raised that sequence.
• How rare?
This rare:
NHL• Lafferty's three goals in fewer than 48 hours won't be all that goes noticed by Sullivan and upper management, from hearing them praise his game.
"He's earned his playing time," Sullivan said. "He's just playing terrific hockey. He makes a difference, every game he's been in, you know? We always felt like Sam was close coming into this training camp. But I think he's got more confidence in himself that he belongs here. And that's great for him and great for us."
• Aston-Reese's two goals were his first on the season. One was a rebound for the Penguins' first, the other this short-handed beauty in which he dug those thick legs deep into the ice and whisked away from the Jets' Josh Morrissey:
Given questions that once affected Aston-Reese about his skating, I couldn't help but ask how especially good that type of goal must have felt. And check out the smile that ensued:
• Dominik Simon finally put home his first goal, this off a spectacular kick-pass from Crosby as he was falling:
At the same time, watch all of it to further appreciate what Simon did to set up his own goal before that. Count the blue sweaters, then count his, then trail the puck. He's not an accident.
"That's awesome," Guentzel said of Simon getting the goal. "When you've played so well and haven't shown up on the scoresheet, that's going to give him a lot of confidence. He's such a big part of our line, so it's really nice to see that."
• Sullivan seemed to acknowledge that he'd put Erik Gudbranson in a tough spot, reinserting him into the lineup but on the left side next to John Marino rather than his natural right side. To be kind, the struggle was evident throughout.
"Yeah, we did," Sullivan said, "but we felt it was important to keep him in the flow. So we're trying to manage it as best we can. Like I've been saying daily, we feel like we have nine quality defensemen. We chose to put Guddy in the lineup tonight, and I thought he had a solid game."
• If this isn't the best sheet of ice in the NHL, then I haven't seen the one that is. The puck moved so smoothly, the fastest players were positively flying, and the sport was being played as it should. It can't be that hard. It just can't.
• Paul Maurice, after his Jets were embarrassed enough on home ice that fans began leaving Bell MTS Place early in the third -- a great rarity here -- ended his press conference abruptly with this: “You know what? Don’t take this game as permanent. We had a tough night. We’ve been a pretty damned good team. We weren’t tonight. I’m leaving it at that.”
The Jets have talent up front, but they're sorely lacking on defense and, at least from my vantage point, in goal. Those are hard hurdles to overcome.
• The other guys? They're 4-2. And they're pretty good. Long way to go, but the leak's been patched.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE INJURIES
• Evgeni Malkin (lower body, LTIR)
• Bryan Rust (hand, LTIR)
• Zach Trotman (hernia, LTIR)
• Nick Bjugstad (lower body, IR)
• Alex Galchenyuk (lower body, IR)
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Guentzel-Crosby-Simon
Kahun-McCann-Hornqvist
Aston-Reese-Blueger-Tanev
A. Johnson-Blandisi-Lafferty
Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Schultz
Gudbranson-Marino
And for Maurice's Jets:
Laine-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Copp-Ehlers
Perreault-Roslovic-Appleton
Bourque-Lowry-Letestu
Morrissey-Poolman
Dahlstrom-Pionk
Bitetto-Kulikov
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins were to fly home immediately after this game, then have Monday off. The next practice is Tuesday, 11 a.m., at PPG Paints Arena, and the next game is there the next night against Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche. Faceoff is 7:08 p.m.
THE COVERAGE
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