WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- This wasn't Montreal. It wasn't some cathartic event cast against a crumbling cathedral.
This wasn't Toronto, either. It wasn't some front-to-finish systematic shutdown against an overhyped opponent that hasn't won a thing in, what, half a century?
No, if I had to splice this one down to a single sequence, it'd very much be these 24 seconds:
We're a billion miles from Brazil, but that's some samba-level soccer right there, baby.
I know, nothing actually resulted. Stick with me.
Because from this press box perch on this Monday night at Canada Life Centre, the most significant separator between the Penguins' 3-1 rally past the Jets and the first couple victories on this perfect, possibly transformational three-game Canadian trip was very much that they'd have their faith tested one final time before flying home.
In that sequence I'm showing, from the first period, the Jets positively soar up ice. With surgical precision. Seven touches. Every skater on the rink. Coast to coast. East to west, south to north. It's one coach's sweetest dream, another's sweatiest nightmare.
And that very much reflected the overall scene.
"We had a lot of jump," Winnipeg's Paul Maurice would observe.
"We get on our heels a little bit in the first period," Mike Sullivan would observe in another corridor. "Give them credit. They came out hard on their toes, and they're a talented team."
Certainly atop the depth chart they are. The Jets have flaws, but their top-six guys up front stack up with anyone in the NHL.
So when Dominic Toninato opened the scoring midway through that period, and Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck had already made two sizzling stops on Sidney Crosby, and when all those Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers types kept threatening and threatening -- it would've been more than understandable if the visitors had begun to doubt what they'd already achieved up here, and even if their all-out-puck-possession system would apply in this circumstance.
Since, you know, their contacts with the puck looked a lot like what's above.
Instead, Tristan Jarry kept up his superlative play and the rest ...
"You've just kind of gotta dig in," Chad Ruhwedel was saying. "And once we started relying on our structure, guys got their legs under them, then it started to show a lot better."
Just a bit: Through one period, the Jets outshot the Penguins, 11-5. Through the final two, that was flipped, 31-20.
And it began, as Ruhwedel indicated, in the back. Faces were in faces, sticks were on pucks, and the ice started to tilt toward Hellebuyck until, at 14:29 of the second, Jason Zucker broke through for his first goal in a dozen games:
"For some reason, my son was letting everyone borrow his mini-hockey net," Zucker would joke without hinting at so much as a grin. "Yeah, it was good to get one."
Not that anything changed. They simply stood by what'd worked in Montreal, in Toronto and beforehand, of course, in that oft-discussed final period a week ago against the Sabres.
"I thought we did a pretty good job just grabbing hold of ourselves, trying to turn the momentum a little bit, just simplifying the game," Sullivan would say. "And, you know, as I said to the players, we weren't as heavy on the puck in the first period, and I thought the players responded really well. We competed hard in that in the last 40 minutes. And the third, I think, was our best."
Don't take that solely from the Pittsburgh side.
Maurice: "We looked slow. It was a tough third period."
Connor: "We didn't really get too many great looks."
Andrew Copp: "They won all the puck battles."
Assessments like those might be starting to sound familiar, recalling how Sheldon Keefe, the Maple Leafs' coach, explained to reporters Saturday in Toronto why he didn't shuffle lines in the third period thusly: "I didn't think the lines were an issue, the Pittsburgh Penguins were an issue."
Danton Heinen made the outcome familiar, too, roofing a rebound over Hellebuyck 3:33 into the third, this after Dominik Simon did well to redirect a Ruhwedel point shot:
This is it, my friends. This is the template. All of it.
This is how this team needs to ... not win but contend in the latter stage of the Crosby era. And let's not kid ourselves to the contrary. As I'm typing this, Sid's got one goal and one assist through his six games. He's shown well enough -- he was buzzing in this one -- but he's not about to be chasing down the Edmonton guys in the scoring race. And neither will Evgeni Malkin once he returns.
This is it.
Oh, and there's nothing wrong with it. No shame. It's not a defensive system, even if defense is prioritized. It's not an offensive system, even if the team attacks as a five-man unit. It's a foundation built on fast players pursuing pucks with a hunger, as this game illustrated. Once the legs were revived, everything clicked, not just the defending.
I asked Heinen if this trip, in which the Penguins outscored their opponents, 11-1, can represent that foundation.
"I think so," he replied. "We're getting healthier, we've started playing better hockey and, you know, we got some time to hang out together on the road and get closer as a team. So I think we can build on this, for sure."
Asked Zucker the same.
"For sure," he replied. "We haven't had a healthy team all year. We've had guys out left and right. It's been nice to have that, in addition to gaining that chemistry back with people moving back where they'd usually be. Absolutely, this trip can be that."
Better believe I asked Sullivan, as well.
"Yeah, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is get better every day, every game," he began. "It's nice to get a few wins in a row here to build some traction, to build some team confidence. I think it provides a lot of evidence for us that, if we play a certain way, we can get consistent results. It certainly helps the buy-in when you get the results consistently. And I give the players so much credit for that."
I then asked if this team's got more to give, knowing full well what kind of answer would come back.
"We've got to. We've just got to continue to grow. We've got to get better. We can't get satisfied. We've got to stay hungry. We've got to raise that bar. And on top of that, we've got some guys who recently came back, and their games are just getting there. They're coming. And we're going to push that standard with everybody. By no means is anyone satisfied here. We're pleased with the trip. We're pleased with the effort tonight. We'll move by it and get ready for the next one."
Wednesday night back home against the Canucks.
Feel free to report to the rink both refreshed and unsatisfied. Season's on again.
DKPS
• It isn't all about intangible or potential benefits. When the team charter embarked for Montreal a week ago, the Penguins were 5-6-4 and sniffing the Islanders' stench in the Metro cellar. Now, the picture's what's right up there.
Long, long, long way to go, but that's a layout that looks a lot closer to what most had expected entering this season.
• Jarry's 30 saves meant he capped his trip with a ... uh, .987 save percentage, having stopped 78 of 79 shots. And his season figure's now up to .930, ninth-best in the NHL.
Also, his scoreless streak of 161:33, snapped by the Toninato goal, is the league's longest this season.
Not sure what to say about him anymore, so I'll defer to Zucker, who offered up something I hadn't heard from anyone associated with the team.
"You know what? He's playing with great confidence," Zucker said. "And that's huge for us. I mean, we knew that over the summer, he was going to take himself very seriously in the training, and then come back and want to have a statement year. And this trip, I think, was huge for him. I think he's done a great job. He's been working his tail off and playing really, really well for us."
• Zucker wasn't having a great game, to be kind, before his goal. But this was how his evening ended:
Tonight's Bold Penguin of the Game: @Jason_Zucker16 pic.twitter.com/lueAAWpeeX
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) November 23, 2021
If that ceremony sounds a little quieter than the norm, that's because Zucker's usually the one making the most noise on those. Very popular teammate.
• Jake Guentzel's empty-netter with 2:15 remaining extended his goal streak to five games. And he's earned it. Although it's coincided with Sid's return, he's creating lots of offense on his own.
• Over the past summer, a certain columnist who shall not be named but reads comic books, obsesses over coffee and loves Winnipeg ... had some critical things to say about the Penguins signing Heinen to a one-year, $1.5 million contract. He even panned Ron Hextall's reference to that being "a value signing."
He formally takes the hard L right here. Because this guy's now got six goals, two off Guentzel's team lead, and has been a generally fine fit regardless of his line assignment.
"I think they've done a great job being patient with me and just learning their systems and stuff, and the guys have all been great," Heinen said of his transition from Anaheim to Pittsburgh. "I think that's a credit to everybody here, just to make me feel comfortable. It's just been good so far."
• In contrast, there'll be no love anywhere for Simon, although he led the team in Corsi For percentage at five-on-five -- he was on the ice for 15 Pittsburgh shot attempts, just five for Winnipeg -- and had the aforementioned assist.
He hasn't been great of late, but this was a plus. And if he's on this lineup's bubble, this lineup's in a good place.
• Speaking of no love, all Kris Letang does is log nearly a half-hour of ice time every game and merit nary a mention. His steadiness to date has been a silent undercurrent to this little revival.
• Make no mistake: Hellebuyck will be America's goaltender in Beijing. Meaning Sullivan's goaltender. And really, other than Whitehall's John Gibson, I'm not sure who else enters this conversation.
Been funny, by the way, to hear Sullivan answer so many questions about the Olympics on this trip posed by Canadian reporters. Can't overstate what a huge deal the Games always are in this country.
A cynic might suggest it's got something to do with no Stanley Cups up here since 1993.
• A little look at my walk to the arena for faceoff:
The place is growing. Like, a lot. The population's up by more than 100,000 over the past decade and change, and the money's coming at an even greater rate. Just since I was here in 2019, there are two skyscrapers taller than any building that'd been here previously. And right in the block illustrated above, there are several new structures shooting up ... and a statue to the late, great Dale Hawerchuk.
Ultimately, though, one thing's eternal here:
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
The newly renamed Canada Life Centre, as seen from the opposite side of Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Monday morning.
Yep. A fresh coat of snow's in the forecast for Tuesday, along with minus-11 temps, right as I'm flying home.
• Thanks for reading this column and throughout this Canadian trek. I'll be back on the football beat after a Thanksgiving breather.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Canada Life Centre:
1. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
2. Connor Hellebuyck, Jets
3. Danton Heinen, Penguins
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 Maurice's Jets:
Connor-Dubois-Wheeler
Copp-Scheifele-Ehlers
Harkins-Lowry-Svechnikov
Toninato-Nash-Vesalainen
Morrissey-Schmidt
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-DeMelo
THE SCHEDULE
Next up: Home. There'll be a day off Tuesday, then the Canucks the following day, 7:08 p.m., at PPG Paints Arena.
THE CONTENT
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
