Kovacevic: Penguins embracing 200-foot grind, living legends and all

TORONTO -- "That's what our game has to look like every night."

Hmm. Not quite the answer I'd anticipated from Sidney Crosby. Even though I'd asked the question. Even though I've applauded as much as anyone the team-first approach he's applied in every setting over his spectacular career.

The question, in essence, was this: Since he'd accompanied the Penguins on their season-opening trip through Florida, watching both from the press boxes in Tampa and Sunrise, could he appreciate the similarities with what he and his teammates had just achieved on this Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena with their intense, in-your-face 2-0 suffocation of the sizzling Maple Leafs for a second straight shutout?

And that quote atop this column was where he began.

"It's not necessarily easy to play that way," he'd proceed. "You've gotta be on your toes. You've gotta generate from turning pucks over and creating havoc on the forecheck. You're still gonna have those times where you don't have momentum, you spend time in your own zone, but even there, you can come up with some big blocks and big saves."

Defending.

"That's how we need to play."

He's talking about defending.

"That's our game. And we've gotten to it here the last, you know, two games plus a period. So we've gotta continue to do that."

And that's coming right from the captain-slash-living-legend-slash-still-generational-talent himself.

I'll repeat: There's no reason I should've been taken aback by the answer. All Sid's done since childhood is win everything, and he's done it every which way. Mike Babcock, Canada's coach at the Sochi Olympics, told a group of us over in Russia that Crosby was 'a serial winner,' and I've never heard a more apt label.

And yet, I was taken aback. Maybe because I'd never heard Sid describe a team-wide dedication to defense so starkly. Maybe because, as a born-and-bred Pittsburgher, I'd accepted forever ago that hockey stars and hockey defending don't mix.

But maybe, too, it's because, on that night in Tampa when the Penguins absolutely engulfed the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs, I rode down the Amalie Arena elevator after the game with Sid, Jake Guentzel and a couple other players who'd been injured or ill, and I couldn't help but think at the time what I'm sure a lot of people were thinking: Yeah, but will they play this way when everyone's back?

Well, they are. 

To those "two games plus a period" Sid referenced: They dominated the third period of the 2-1 loss to the Sabres back home Tuesday, then crossed into Canada for a cathartic 6-0 crushing of the Canadiens two nights later in Montreal, then flew here and limited the Maple Leafs, winners of six in a row and 10 of their previous 11, to a total of 26 shots, killed off a late five-on-three and, hardly to be overlooked, saw Tristan Jarry string together a shutout of 151:06, just 26:10 away from topping his own franchise record set in 2019.

Believe me, Sid's not the only one talking about why.

"It's about a full 200-foot game," Guentzel replied when I raised Florida with him. "We know, if we defend hard, we're going to get our chances and that, when we're playing like that, it's hard to beat us. So, we've just gotta stick to playing this way. Keep it simple."

"I call it Penguins hockey," Mike Sullivan replied when I did likewise with him. "The guys played hard. We're at our best when we're playing a straight-ahead game, a speed game, a puck-pursuit game, playing on our toes, getting up the ice five-man units. I thought, for most of the night, we were trying to establish that game. This is a real good team we're playing against, one that's playing extremely well, so we had moments when we were on our heels. But when we were, I thought we defended hard."

Then came the final 20 minutes, which was full-on Florida trip. Being blunt here, I hadn't been wild about the first 40, but the Penguins took charge in the third by outshooting the Maple Leafs, 14-9, despite being assessed all three of the period's penalties. Including the five-on-three that lasted 1:49 but which saw the Penguins register the only two shots.

"I thought our third period was really strong, leading up to the penalty-kill," Sullivan added. "That was the type of game that we wanted to play."

Someone else was talking about this, as well, and it might've been the most compelling.

"We lost to a good team," Sheldon Keefe, the Maple Leafs' coach, would tell Toronto reporters, "that played better than us."

Asked to elaborate: "They just defend real hard and make it tough on you. We got what we deserved in terms of our offense."

Asked if there were similarities to the Penguins' 7-1 rout of his team Oct. 23 at PPG Paints Arena: "I thought, in the first period, with the types of goals they scored, they were very similar in nature; Handling their speed in the neutral zone was a problem for us there, and it was a problem for us here tonight."

Asked why he didn't shuffle any lines in the third to maybe get something going: "I didn't think the lines were an issue. The Pittsburgh Penguins were an issue."

Oh, my.

Coaches always know. They know when they've been beaten by a team committing to a system that requires uncommon discipline and diligence. One that's a "not necessarily easy way to play," to borrow from Sid. And the coaches who lose to it don't particularly like it because it inherently implies shortcomings in their own.

The main reason this matters, of course, is the bigger picture. 

The four points so far on this three-game Canada trip that concludes Monday in Winnipeg are more than welcome ...

DKPS

... but, as I've been writing since the handshake line on Long Island, the next natural phase for this franchise has to be one that works best with the Core, notably Crosby. And that's defending. Not just in the defensive zone but all over the rink, pushing for puck possession, then using all the speed at hand to convert the way both goals exemplified:

Both cover a ton of ice in a matter of seconds, both begin with a defenseman's long, on-target outlet, and both benefit from big-time speed and skill at the finishes, courtesy of Guentzel and Jeff Carter.

"Up and down, up and down," was how Mike Matheson painted the approach. "We're a fast team. If we're going east-west, we're not as fast."

Yep. It's fast, not slow. It's not the trap. It's not a delay. It's not skating backward. It's the polar opposite of all of those. But it is dependent on dogging the puck with a rabidity that might be more suited to an AHL recall than a first-liner, much less a star, much less a living legend. And that right there's the catch, since it's got to be all hands, all sticks in the pile, or it doesn't work.

This, what's occurred up here in Canada, is too small a sample size for a significant impact on the standings. But it's also a riveting reminder, coupled with the awareness that the best version of Sid and any version of Evgeni Malkin still haven't arrived, that it really works.

GETTY

Jake Guentzel's first-period shot is sticked away by the Maple Leafs' Jack Campbell.

• Almost feels unfair to go overboard for the big five-on-three kill in the third, given that the PK's rated No. 1 in the NHL at 89.1% and that it's been up there almost all season. It's hardly something exceptional, in the truest use of that term. They do this all the time.

I asked Brian Dumoulin, since he's a vet and one of the main killers, if there's some kind of bond being formed off the ice.

"I think we're all just gelling, all on the same page right now," he'd come back. "We're getting kills at key points of the game, we're not having to kill too many power plays, which is huge. I mean, we've been very disciplined this whole year, which has helped us out a lot. And guys will block shots. And we've had a good start here, so it's easy to build some confidence with it. So that's been huge for us, especially after last year, that's definitely an area where we wanted to improve."

The PK in the shortened 2021 season ranked 25th at 77.4%.

Sullivan praised Mike Vellucci, his assistant coach responsible for the PK, and the participants.

"I think Mike has done a terrific job just getting the guys on the same page,." Sullivan said. "We've got an identity as a penalty-kill. We have a foundation established on how we want to kill, the guys are buying into it, and I think the early success has given us a little bit of confidence and a little bit of swagger, and I think that's an important aspect of it, as well."

Brock McGinn was receiving most of the attaboys for the five-on-three, since he blocked two shots. But the Maple Leafs wound up with only two decent looks the entire time -- William Nylander shot one high, clanged the other off the right pipe -- and that's a broader tribute to everyone involved.

• Guentzel's got four goals since Sid's return, and yet it hardly feels like he's been siphoning offense. This goal was a singularly superb effort, brains, hands and all, and Sid was a mere decoy skating up the right side. And actually, if anything, Sid benefited from Guentzel's presence with that virtuoso one-touch setup in Montreal.

Without comparing them, they're complementary players, pure and simple.

• Jarry was sharp again, stopping eight high-danger chances among his 26 saves, and here are three of the finest:

I reminded Jarry afterward that he told me in Montreal it felt "awesome" to be getting so much work -- ninth start in 10 games -- and asked this time if it's making him better at what he does.

"Yeah I think that's exactly it," he responded this time. "I'm enjoying it, and it's making me better just as I get to play more. I'm feeling the game a lot better, and I think it's making me a better goalie, just being able to go night in and night out and just focusing on my game, doing everything I can. And the guys are doing a great job. We're getting blocks. We're getting clears when we need to. I think that's been the key to our success as of lately."

Nope. It's been him. But the rest is needed, too.

• By the way, Jarry, who won't be shoving Honest Abe, JFK or MLK off the list of history's great orators, spoke what might've been the most succinct summation of the Penguins' season to date, when asked by a Toronto reporter why things are looking up: "We finally got healthy. We have finally most of our team that we've put together through training camp, and it's just been some unfortunate events, a couple injuries and then half the team gang sick ... it was just out of our control. And we just tried to do the best we can getting points here and there, and I think just now getting our regular team back, that's gonna be good for us."

Well, yeah.

Next time, he can write the column.

• Or, maybe not:

• If there's a quieter venue than this one in professional sports, I've never experienced it.

I can't know if it's because of a half-century of failure -- no Stanley Cup Final appearances since 1967 -- or because tickets cost too many hundreds of Canadian dollars or whatever, but I do know that the Maple Leafs' top line had a full minute of sustained pressure in the Pittsburgh zone, and this might as well have been the Toronto Symphony Orchestra after lights go down.

• Because I can never resist: The Pirates have won two World Series, 1971 and 1979, since the Maple Leafs' last Cup in 1967, and they've even won one more playoff round, 2013, since the Maple Leafs last advanced in 2004.

Current hollow fanciness aside, this remains the worst franchise in professional sports by the only criteria that count.

• As long as I'm cross-sporting, they're the Browns. They're so very much the Browns, grossly overhyped stars who never win and with nothing to show for as long as most of us have been alive.

But Cleveland's way louder. And they bark.

• Social media was created just so this Twitter account could get updated daily:

All right, this piece is really disintegrating now. Needs to end.

• All historical venom aside, here's a pic of me and Mats Sundin that a couple of passersby were kind enough to snap in the afternoon:

KIND PASSERSBY / FOR DKPS

Mats Sundin statue outside Scotiabank Arena, Toronto.

Never any harm in having fun on the job, right?

On Sunday morning, I'll be flying to a special place in my life that I originally encountered on the job. And I can promise I'll have even more fun once there.

• Thanks for reading, as always.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE THREE STARS

As selected at the Scotiabank Arena:

1. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
2. Jake Guentzel, Penguins
3. Jack Campbell, Maple Leafs

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• Evgeni Malkin, center, is expected to miss the first two months of the season while recovering from knee surgery. He's been skating with Ty Hennes in Cranberry and didn't accompany the team on this trip.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Zucker-Carter-Kapanen
Simon-Rodrigues-Heinen
Aston-Reese-Blueger-McGinn

Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Marino
Matheson-Ruhwedel

And for Keefe's Leafs:

Ritchie-Matthews-Marner
Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander
Engvall-Kampf-Kase
Bunting-Spezza-Simmonds

Rielly-Brodie
Muzzin-Holl
Sandin-Liljegren

THE SCHEDULE

Next up: Winnipeg! It's a scheduled off day for the team, so expect a full morning skate Monday in advance of the 8:38 p.m. Eastern faceoff with the Jets.

THE CONTENT

Visit our Penguins team page for everything.