John Marino and Brian Dumoulin both made their returns to the Penguins' lineup in Tuesday's 7-3 win over the Senators at PPG Paints Arena.
Neither took very long to make an impact.
Just 48 seconds into the game, Marino opened the scoring with a shot from the point:
"Just get it to the net," Marino said of what he saw on his goal. "I saw (Bryan Rust) had a good screen in front, luckily it went in."
Less than a minute later, Dumoulin set up Conor Sheary for a goal to make it a 2-0 game:
"You could see it from the very first shift," Rust said of Dumoulin and Marino's impacts. "Those guys were great. They're such huge parts of this team. They help us break out, they help us play offense, they're good penalty killers, good offensively. To have them back is good."
Mike Sullivan said before the game that ideally, they'd be able to ease the injured players (namely Dumoulin, who has been out much longer than Marino) back into the lineup, but the circumstances of the game wouldn't really give them an opportunity to do that.
Marino finished No. 2 among defensemen in ice time with 20:55, and Dumoulin finished No. 3 with 19:52. Marino played 2:05 on the power play and 3:26 on the penalty kill, and Dumoulin played 14 seconds on the power play and 2:09 on the penalty kill.
After being thrown right back into game action with big minutes, both players felt comfortable as the game went on.
"I felt good," Dumoulin said. "The conditioning was there, thanks to our strength coaches and rehab guys. They did a great job with me and Johnny."
"The first couple of shifts were an adjustment," Marino said. "The team playing well helps out a lot, it makes it easier on yourself."
Marino said after Monday's practice that wearing the fish bowl-style full shield would likely be an adjustment, even though he wore the same style of full shield in college. He still isn't crazy about wearing it, but didn't think it was too bad.
"It's different," Marino told me of the shield. "There's pros and cons with it for sure. You just adjust as you go."
Don't expect the shield to stay on for a minute longer than he has to have it, though.
"As soon as I can switch back, I'm switching back," he laughed.
It's only been one game, and it was only the Senators, but the two defensemen were big part of helping the team break out of this recent funk, and should have a big impact moving forward.
"They're such good players on both sides of the puck," Sullivan said. "They defend so well, their puck poise on the breakouts, they have a lot of subtleties to their game that help us get out of our end clean with the puck. They're both just real good players."
Sullivan added that both defensemen also help "create some balance" throughout the pairs, which couldn't have been more obvious looking at the blue line's offensive and defensive struggles in their absence.
"When you get guys of that caliber back, it's always going to help with the rotation," Marcus Pettersson said.
It sounds like it added a bit of a morale boost, too.
"Anytime you get guys like that back in, it gives you a boost for sure," Matt Murray said.
____________________
AROUND THE RINK
• Patrick Marleau now walks out of the tunnel between Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, breaking a 14-year streak of those two coming out of the tunnel last together. Here's why.
• It was 90s Night at the arena, so the Penguins used the old Boys of Winter theme after warmups and intermissions, and even broke out the old robo pigeon logo for videoboard graphics.
• The Penguins produce a series of head-to-head videos between two players for these theme nights, where players compete to give the name of a song, movie, or television show after being seeing or listening to a clip. Around Christmas, Jack Johnson destroyed Crosby in a Christmas movie guessing game. Tonight, Crosby took an early 4-1 lead in guessing 90s television shows, but blew the lead as Johnson went on a four-point run:
"Look at Jesse there. Sick flow." ? pic.twitter.com/4yUOEnvDA9
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 4, 2020
BEHIND THE SCENES
• Jake Guentzel was the lone injured Penguin in the press box today. He was not wearing a sling.
• Of the other injured players, Zach Aston-Reese and Nick Bjugstad were in the locker room after the game.
• With Brandon Tanev out, the pregame soccer game was just Rust and Pettersson were the only guys in the 5 p.m. soccer game.
• No surprise, but Rust got the MVP firefighter helmet after the win.
• Mario Lemieux was in the locker room after the win.
• The trade deadline has passed, but scouts are still in the building to scout for future matchups. The Sabres and Rangers had scouts there tonight. The Penguins play the Sabres Thursday, and have a home-and-home with the Rangers on March 18 and 20 then come to Pittsburgh again on April 2. The Rangers scout is Rick Kehoe, so he's around all the time regardless.
BY THE NUMBERS
• Crosby led the Penguins with six shots on goal.
• Pettersson led with four blocked shots.
• Rust's hat trick was the first Penguins hat trick of the season after Patric Hornqvist had his taken back last month. It was the third hat trick of Rust's career.
• Rust now has 27 goals in 51 games this season. In a full 82-game season he'd be on pace to score 43 goals.
• Rust's goals also bring him to 53 points in 51 games, giving him a 1.04 point-per-game pace.
• Sheary's goal was his first with the Penguins since April 5, 2018, when his third-period goal in Columbus forced overtime.
• The win was the Penguins' 23rd win at home this season, which is tied for the most home wins in the league with the Flyers and Blues.
• The Penguins haven't lost at home to the Senators since Jan. 10, 2012, winning nine straight against the Senators at home since then. Looking at the forward lineup from that last home loss to Ottawa, I don't know if they've dressed a worse group in the last decade:
• With Tanev and Dominik Simon missing their first games of the season, only Pettersson and Teddy Blueger have appeared in every game for the Penguins this season.
• Dan Potash told me the Penguins have a record of (I believe) 6 and 1 when he's in some sort of costume for the theme night. He was Austin Powers for 90s night on Tuesday.
MILESTONE WATCH
• Malkin (903) is 12 games away from tying Mario Lemieux (915) for second all-time in Penguins franchise history in games played.
• Malkin (1,069) is 10 points away from tying Jaromir Jagr (1,079) for third all-time in franchise history in scoring.
• Malkin (954) is five minutes away from tying Rod Buskas (959) for third all-time in franchise history in penalty minutes
• Malkin (72) is two game-winning goals away from tying Lemieux (74) for second-all time in franchise history, and six away from tying Jagr (78).
• Sidney Crosby (317) is three even strength goals away from tying Jagr (320) for second all-time in franchise history.
• Crosby (980) is 20 games away from 1,000 games.
• Matt Murray (196) tied Les Binkley (196) for fifth all-time in franchise history in games played by a goaltender. Next up on the list is Ken Wregget with 212 games.
• Crosby recorded career assist No. 800 on Jason Zucker's third-period goal. He's the 32nd player in NHL history to reach the milestone. He did it in the sixth-fewest number of games of any other player:
Another amazing accomplishment for @penguins captain Sidney Crosby.
He is the sixth player in NHL history to reach 800 career regular-season assists in fewer than 1,000 games. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/Xogm1fasE0
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) March 4, 2020
THEY SAID IT
• Sullivan on Crosby: "I thought his performance was terrific. I think anytime a captain and a player of Sid's caliber takes ownership like (he did last game), I think it inspires the rest of the group to want to play for him."
• Crosby on 800 assists: "It's a nice number. I mean, it took long enough. Glad I got it, and try to move on."
• Rust: "We played hard. And I think we played together. I think we were playing as a five-man unit, playing in their face."
THE OTHER SIDE
• The Senators had a two-game win streak end.
• First-line center Artem Anisimov left the game in the first period after Bobby Ryan hit Malkin into Anisimov's head. There was no update on his status after the game.
• Brady Tkachuk: We thought we had good jump at the start and kind of made things interesting, but towards the end, we just kind of left (Craig Andersen) out to dry."
AROUND THE NHL
• The Islanders' Johnny Boychuk took a skate blade to the eye in a game against the Canadiens. It sounds like his eye is okay, but he sustained a cut to his eyelid. Scary situation.
• The Islanders lost that game in regulation, keeping them from gaining any ground on the Penguins. They currently occupy the top wild card spot and are just four points behind the Penguins.
• The Flyers and Capitals play each other on Wednesday. The Flyers rank second in the Metropolitan Division with a one-point lead over the Penguins, and the Capitals rank first with a four-point lead over the Penguins. All three teams have played the same number of games.
PHOTO GALLERY
Penguins vs. Senators, March 3, 2020, PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY