You can credit Jason Spezza with an assist for the Penguins in Tuesday's 5-2 win over the Flyers at PPG Paints Arena.
No, really.
Three days before, Spezza's Leafs were in Edmonton playing the Oilers. And midway through the second period, Spezza pulled off this beautiful fake move while skating up the right side to force goaltender Mike Smith to react, allowing him to finish short-side:
Spezza's former Toronto teammate Kasperi Kapanen took notice and scored a near-identical goal (albeit opting to go five-hole) after the same fake move in the second period of Tuesday's game to tie the score at one goal apiece:
"I felt like the goalie kind of came out a bit and there was a little bit of back pressure from their D," Kapanen said after the game when I asked him about his goal. "I just tried the fake shot and put it through his legs there. I saw Spezza do that a couple of nights ago, so it was something I just wanted to try out."
Spezza saw Kapanen's copycat move and texted him words of encouragement after the game.
"Jason Spezza, the big daddy himself," Kapanen laughed. "His was a lot nicer than mine. ... Everybody saw that move. He actually texted me after the game and said to keep the move alive. It's fun to hear."
Five minutes later, Kapanen gave the Penguins their first lead of the game with a power play goal after a nice passing play with Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust:
The two-goal performance was a continuation of a hot streak Kapanen has been on for the last week and a half, ever since he was benched for the third period of the game against the Islanders back on Feb. 20. Mike Sullivan had a conversation after that game with Kapanen about the expectations for his play, and since then, Kapanen has three goals and two assists in five games.
"I'm just trying to be in the play a bit more and be more active," Kapanen said of his play since that conversation with Sullivan. "Just using my size and my skating to try to make a difference out there. I felt pretty good these past five games."
It's that confidence that's allowing him to "try out" moves like that Spezza-like fake.
Rust extended the lead two minutes later with a goal of his own. After the Flyers' Joel Farabee scored his second of the game in the third period to cut the Penguins' lead to one goal, Cody Ceci got the two-goal lead right back with this finish on another great passing play:
Mike Matheson scored into the near-empty net late in the third from the Penguins' own blue line as Carter Hart was in the middle of being pulled for the extra attacker. He hadn't yet made it off the ice, but was too far out of his cage to stop Matheson's long-range shot. The goal sealed the 5-2 win.
It was an especially rewarding win given the circumstances of the day. Sidney Crosby and Todd Reirden were both unavailable due to COVID protocols, and the Penguins' morning skate was canceled last-minute because of those protocols. Unexpectedly losing your top player, power play/defense coach, and not having a morning skate to prepare after not having a practice the day before isn't ideal, to say the least.
Kapanen was one of the players who saw an elevated role as a result of the shuffling, stepping onto the top power play unit.
"He's our leader," Kapanen said of being without Crosby. "Stuff happens. We weren't able to go on the ice (in the morning) but we worked out, the staff did a tremendous job of getting us ready and getting us prepared for tonight. I thought the team really stepped up today."
"There's going to be a lot of challenges this year that you can't control," said Tristan Jarry. "It's something that you can't really think too much into, you just have to take it as it goes. I think we did a really good job today, we started well and I thought the team played a great game."
"That pretty much sums up the COVID season for you," Rust said. "There's a lot of unexpected things that can happen. You just have to roll with the punches."
Sullivan was pleased with how his team handled the adversity in this one.
"It was a challenge," he said. "Those are difficult circumstances, unexpected circumstances. As I said to the players, all we can do is focus on the game and control what we can. And that's what we tried to do. We focus on hockey. ... I thought the guys played hard tonight, they focused on the game. I thought we defended hard when we needed to. We got some pretty decent play throughout our lineup."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Defenseman Mark Friedman, claimed off waivers from Philadelphia last week, made his Penguins debut, with P.O Joseph being moved to the taxi squad to make room. He had the secondary assist on Ceci's goal. He recorded two hits, and played 10:25 of ice time, all at even strength.
• Forward Josh Currie, Wilkes-Barre's captain, got into the lineup with Crosby out and centered the fourth line. He was part of the second power play unit, positioned around the top of the right circle where he was so good for Wilkes-Barre's top unit. He had just over a minute each of power play time and penalty kill time
• The Penguins' penalty kill alternates between incredible -- like it was in Washington -- and being a dud -- like it was on Long Island. Today, the solid version of the penalty kill made an appearance, and went 5-for-5. When it's going well, the common sentiment expressed by players and Sullivan is the effect of cooperative pressure. Today, Jarry got some stick taps as well:
"Tonight we competed hard," Sullivan said of the penalty kill. "It wasn't perfect. I thought our best penalty-killer was Tristan Jarry, especially in the first period. He made some big saves early on in our penalty kill that allowed us to get into the game."
"We were able to work as a unit," Rust said. "We got some good pressure up the ice. We had some real big timely saves by Jarry. That's always key on a penalty kill. Guys were out there, working together and doing their job."
• Jarry was outstanding throughout the rest of the game, making 40 saves. The highlight was this toe save in the second period:
• Brandon Tanev led with seven hits.
• Wednesday was the 28th anniversary of Mario Lemieux's return from cancer in Philadelphia. There was a really nice moment during the game when the Penguins both recognized Lemieux's anniversary and welcomed back Oskar Lindblom, who had his own battle with cancer. This wasn't Lindblom's first game back, but it was his first time back playing in Pittsburgh. He got a nice ovation from the crowd and stick taps from both benches:
One big hockey family.#HockeyFightsCancer pic.twitter.com/ILFCQwaGKY
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 3, 2021
• In Reirden's absence, skills coach Ty Hennes was behind the bench. He's never served as an assistant coach before, and didn't seem to have much of an active role behind the bench, and mostly stood on the right side of the bench observing. The way Sullivan spoke of Hennes after the game, it seemed like putting Hennes behind the bench was more so a move to just allow Hennes to see the game at ice level in order to benefit his skill development training with the players.
"We were thrilled for him," Sullivan said of having Hennes behind the bench. "I think he was excited to experience it behind the bench. He does such a terrific job with our players and preparing them with some of the skill work that he does with our guys. Some of the position-specific skill work, he's so good at. He's really an asset to our coaching staff. So for him to watch the game from the bench and get that vantage point, I think was invaluable for him, but it was exciting for him at the same time. I know our players were excited for him."
• It was nice seeing fans back at the arena, but a bit jarring to see the number of people skirting the mask requirements by having them pulled down or off completely during the game (while not actively eating or drinking), despite agreeing to the arena safety protocols as part of the ticket-buying process. Looking at the game photos of the crowd shots, and the shots of the crowd on the television broadcasts, there are way too many people doing it in nearly every shot.
You'd think that if you were one of the lucky 2,800 fans to attend the first home game available to fans in nearly a year, you'd at least want to follow a pretty simple guideline if only to not risk getting kicked out. And from what I could see from my vantage point of the upper concourse during warmups and intermissions, it was still packed with people in close contact around the concessions stands. To the Penguins' credit, they did implement and advertise mobile ordering for concessions this season to try to prevent those lines. It's up to fans to actually use it.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Kasperi Kapanen, Penguins
2. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
3. Joel Farabee, Flyers
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola has been out since suffering a upper-body on Jan. 19. He has been practicing with the team in a regular jersey for about a week now.
• Forward Evan Rodrigues has been out since suffering a lower-body injury on Jan. 25. He skated Tuesday morning with the taxi squad.
• Defenseman Brian Dumoulin has been out since suffering a lower-body injury on Jan. 26. He skated Tuesday morning with the taxi squad.
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer-term" with a lower-body injury sustained on Feb. 23. Sullivan wouldn't say for sure Thursday whether Zucker is expected back this season.
• Forward Mark Jankowski is day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained on Feb. 26. He skated on his own on Tuesday morning.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Brandon Tanev-Jared McCann-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Sam Lafferty
Colton Sceviour-Josh Currie-Anthony Angello
Marcus Pettersson-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-John Marino
Mark Friedman-Cody Ceci
And for Alain Vigneault's Flyers:
James van Riemsdyk-Sean Couturier-Joel Farabee
Claude Giroux-Kevin Hayes-Nolan Patrick
Oskar Lindblom-Scott Laughton-Jakub Voracek
Michael Raffl-Connor Bunnaman-Travis Konecny
Ivan Provorov-Shayne Gostisbehere
Travis Sanheim-Justin Braun
Robert Hagg-Philippe Myers
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice Wednesday at noon at Cranberry, then play the Flyers again on Thursday evening.
THE CONTENT
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