A month ago, Jack Johnson was getting some good-natured grief from good buddy Drew Doughty. Something about barely having any goals over the past, oh, decade or so.
"What happened to you, man?" Doughty jabbed, per Johnson's recollection. "You used to score!"
He actually did. When both were kids with the Kings, both were seen as that sort of defenseman, though only Doughty, of course, would blossom with the offense.
And Johnson's response?
"Ever since I got here, I just focus on the defense, " he'd say to Doughty. "And I'm good with that."
I'm retelling this tale, primarily, for the obvious reason: Johnson blasted a huge short-handed goal in the Penguins' 4-3 rally over the Bruins on this Sunday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena:
My goodness.
Ripped it right by the big blocker of Jaroslav Halak. Brought a 3-3 tie after spotting Boston the first three. Might as well have brought the roof down, too.
Can't be a better feeling in this beautiful sport. Just can't.
Not that Johnson would own up to that.
"Just feels good to help the team out," he'd say afterward to the crush of cameras and microphones at his stall. "No matter what you're doing, whether it's killing penalties, making a hit, getting your teammates going, it always feels good to help the team."
That's what he should've told Doughty.
Because this guy, though grossly overpaid by Jim Rutherford and still prone to a gaffe or botched assignment, has raised his overall performance year over year to 10 points, a plus-9 rating and a 48.52 Corsi For percentage at five-on-five. All are modest upgrades over 2018-19. In addition, he's raised his dedication to defending beyond any doubt. And for emphasis, I'm referring to the dedication above all.
It even involved the goal up there, believe it or not.
Once the cameras and microphones cleared out, I asked Johnson why he chose the short side on Halak, if maybe he'd spotted a hole. And his answer was ... let's just say there's not a lot I hear in hockey that surprises me, and this one stunned me.
"Honestly, what's going through my head there is that, if I don't beat him short side, at least I'll put it on net or miss to the left, in which case it just kind of ricochets behind the net," he explained. "But if I miss far side ..."
Then he commits the Alexei Kovalev thing. I've always called it that when anyone rips a shot that wraps all the way around the boards and pings back the other way. Kovalev used to drive everyone nuts with that.
"If that puck goes off the far boards and bounces back past our guys," Johnson continued, "Boston had three guys trapped behind me, so we're sticking Tanger with a three-on-one. I can't risk that."
So he scores a huge goal, first and foremost, by taking care of the back end and his partner, Kris Letang.
That's what he should've told Doughty.
Let's take a longer look to appreciate it further:
What stands out in that clip is what Johnson referenced about three Boston guys being trapped. All three are below the Pittsburgh goal line, with two of them tangled up. That's what gives Johnson the green light to take off.
From there, Brandon Tanev skates tall into the Boston zone, pulls up and hits Johnson as the trailer. Meanwhile, Teddy Blueger drives to the net and, in the process, clips the stick of the Bruins' Patrice Bergeron, a brilliant defensive forward but still out of his element as a defenseman.
"Those guys did all the work," Johnson would say of Tanev and Blueger.
Want to know who didn't do any work?
Oh, you'll really appreciate it now:
Oh, you betcha. That's No. 63 in your program, No. 1 on the Penguins' personal peeve list, Brad Marchand, and he's barely breaking a bead of sweat in getting back. He actually had a step on Johnson at the very outset of the sequence, but Johnson just cared a whole lot more.
Heck, Doughty might like that, too. Because who wouldn't, right?
• It's a really good hockey team you've got. Have I mentioned that at all this winter?
Hey, it feels like it requires a constant reminder. After the hard loss this past Thursday in Boston, then a flat W the following night in Detroit, all the familiar doubts seemed to re-emerge. You know, not tough enough, can't win in the East, blah, blah.
Bigger picture: The Penguins are 17-4-1 in their past 22 games. That's nothing shy of unbelievable in the context of all the players lost.
• Now, both Doms are lost, too: Dominik Simon and Dominik Kahun exited early with injuries. We'll see. At least there's the All-Star break on the way.
• Speaking of Simon, how, how, how does a forward who can't finish score even one goal in his life this gorgeous?
With all else he contributes, it's crazy to conceive of what he'd mean if he could do that just occasionally.
That's another Sidney Crosby setup, sure, but the rest is better.
• Regarding this outcome specifically: It's not the three-goal comeback in isolation, though having three of those this season alone is amazing. It's not that the Boston franchise had been beaten this way one other time in the past decade, having been 200-1-6 with a three-goal lead since 2010, though that's even more impressive in the context of the current Bruins ranking second in the NHL's overall standings.
No, what kills it on this day is that the Penguins defended their way to the rally.
(Not to be repetitive, but that's the theme of this team. Including when they score.)
The broader numbers won't bear this out. Boston wound up way ahead in shots, 37-22, and generated an insane 64.29 percent of the five-on-five shot attempts. But ... and this is important ... the Bruins mustered all of two shots in the first dozen minutes of the second period, during which the Penguins found their footing and pulled within 3-2.
Not coincidentally.
“We all know we came out pretty flat," Letang observed. "As a team, we were confident in the way we can play, that we can come back on any team. We just tried to climb. We didn’t cheat to get goals.”
"In the second period, we were really good," Mike Sullivan essentially echoed later.
Everything starts there with this group.
Kris Letang barks at a referee while he and the Bruins' Brad Marchand tangle. - GETTY• The third period didn't start off nearly as well, with Letang being sent off for elbowing Brad Marchand, the minor that led to Johnson's shorty. I wasn't wild about Letang's move initially, thinking in the moment that he'd reacted angrily because he and Marchand had gotten in a nearly-minute-long scuffle well away from the puck near the end of the second.
Nope. Nothing amiss there at all. As Letang explained to me, Marchand ducked into the check, marking the second such occasion in the game.
"What do you want me to do?" Letang began with predictable fire. "How am I supposed to expect a guy to duck? In the second period, he almost broke my knee. He ducked right into my knee. In the third, he ducks because he didn't want to get hit. What do you want me to do there?"
Fair point. But the optics also included Marchand taking a big spill and losing his lid, which, undoubtedly combined with what happened the previous period, prompted the penalty.
"I didn't even move," Letang kept going. "The problem is, my body hits his shoulder and trunk. The force brings my arms over his head. Then he loses his helmet. Sometimes there are angles on the ice you can't really see. I'm not targeting anyone's head out there. I'm just trying to hit him."
• Letang and Marchand were junior teammates, way back in 2007 with Val D'Or of the Quebec League. And I cite this only to share this magnificent historical image:
ANDY KLINK / FOREURS DE VAL-D'ORNo, that's not a Kajagoogoo reunion.
Feel free to thank Taylor Haase for unearthing that.
• Healthy perspective from the Boston side on the Penguins' bounceback came from Anders Bjork, who scored the Bruins' second goal: "I think we dominated them for four periods, and they probably just got sick of it."
• Crosby's got three goals and five assists in four games since returning, including two more exceptional primary assists in this one. But nothing he did impressed more than having the back of his goaltender.
Asked afterward what he thought of Murray's performance, Crosby replied, "He was really solid. Unfortunately, he heard it a bit from the crowd there early in the game. He stuck with it. He’s been great. That’s not easy for a goalie, when you’re at home and you hear from your own fans.”
Critical to note: No one asked Crosby about the crowd. He brought that up on his own. And knowing his personality, that was no accident.
Good for him. The Bruins' first two goals, 11 seconds after the opening draw and then at 2:02, were the result of massive breakdowns. Which anyone among the 18,655 in the crowd with even a modicum of hockey knowledge would have known.
Unfortunately, as the whole world often works, it only takes a few who are ignorant to foul up the fuller picture.
Our city, for all its hockey history, still exhibits a lack of understanding defense, goaltending and how those two impact each other. It's too common, and it's too casually accepted. Maybe hearing about it from the iconic captain will begin to change that.
• One more in Philadelphia Tuesday before the All-Star break. Dave Molinari and I are hitting the Turnpike to double-team that one.
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