DK's 10 Takes

Kovacevic: Penguins finding 'pride' -- and a playoff path -- in foes' misery

Dec 12, 2021 • 10:00 am

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You should've seen the other guy, as the joke goes.

Should've heard him, too.

"I thought we played a solid road game," Dallas Eakins, Anaheim's head coach, was saying late Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, this after the Penguins' collective defense dunked on his young, dynamic Ducks by a 1-0 count. "That's the type of game we want to play on the road. Pittsburgh's a disciplined and well-coached team. I thought we had chances to win it, but we came up short. Those sting."

Oh, I'll bet.

"I thought we played hard," came another of the other guys, Kevin Shattenkirk, an Anaheim defenseman. "They sent a lot at us. Obviously a very quick team, quick on the transition. We threw everything we had at them, especially there at the end. Just couldn't get one by 'em."

There was more of this. Plenty more.

And truth be told, I'm increasingly finding the opponents' perspective to be more intriguing these days than that of the local team. Because they're the ones who have to face this.

As in, this:

JEANINE LEECH / GETTY

The Ducks' Ryan Getzlaf can't get a shot through the Penguins late in the third period Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena.

That still photo by Getty Images' Jeanine Leech, snapped in this game's final 15 seconds, illustrates so much more than the evening's climactic moment. The one in which the Ducks had desperately been setting up their still-biggest gun, Ryan Getzlaf, for multiple blasts from the left point. The one in which, upon Getzlaf's last-gasp low wrister that'd been ticketed for inside the near pipe, Casey DeSmith deftly put down his right pad for a 33rd and best-for-last save.

What could be more than that?

Well, take another glance up there. Count the bodies sporting the revived Snoop Dogg sweaters: 1-2-3-4-5 ... and DeSmith. The checking line of Teddy Blueger, Zach Aston-Reese and Brock McGinn, and the top defense pairing of Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin.

Every skater on the ice, all in the same frame.

Just couldn't get one by 'em, indeed.

Here, this time, watch those same final 15 seconds again but with video and audio:

" "

Even prettier, huh?

In its own context, of course. Meaning that these Penguins will gut it out, grind it out with anyone, indiscriminately and under any circumstance.

Facing the Lightning on opening night in Tampa, minutes after their Cup banner was raised?

Pittsburgh, 6-2.

Facing the prodigious Panthers right here after painful back-to-back shootout losses?

Pittsburgh, 3-2 ... by shootout.

Facing the Maple Leafs in Toronto after they'd taken six in a row?

Pittsburgh, 2-0.

Facing the Jets in Winnipeg at the tail end of a long Canadian trip?

Pittsburgh, 3-1.

Flying out to Vancouver and Seattle after an even longer trip that opened with two tough losses in Alberta?

Pittsburgh, 4-1 and 6-1.

Facing the Metro-leading Capitals the night before this in Washington, where they'd been humiliated a month earlier?

Pittsburgh, 4-2.

Now facing the Ducks, 4-0-2 in their previous six and being celebrated across the hockey world for all their fun, up-and-coming talent, and on top of that flying back here from D.C. while Anaheim's players and coaches were comfy for 48 hours in a Downtown hotel?

Mm-hm. Pittsburgh, 1-0.

Picking up on the pattern?

Sit down for this: In the Penguins' 14 wins, they've given up a grand total of 15 goals.

Overall, their 2.44 goals-against average is third-lowest in the NHL, their average of 30.4 shots allowed ranks ninth, and their penalty-killing is becoming the stuff of legend, No. 1 with a bullet at a 92.4% success rate and now 30 consecutive kills.

And all of that's principally because every challenge gets met with the same approach: Make everything mega-miserable for the other guys, whether they're good or bad, whether it's home or road and, never to be forgotten, regardless of who's injured, ill or otherwise out.

"It's big," Aston-Reese would say of this one. "Back-to-back, coming off an emotional win against the Caps, we kinda talked about that before the game. Reinvesting your emotions. And we knew tonight's game was going to be a battle against those guys with how they're playing, and all the guys took pride in that. It was a good team win."

And how was it achieved?

"Coming out, we had a game plan of taking their time and space away, especially their D," McGinn said of Anaheim's mobile defense. "We wanted to get in front of them because they all like to jump up into the rush. And I think, for the most part, we did a good job of that."

So did the head coach.

"If we're going to win games consistently, we can't just rely on scoring goals. We got to keep it out of our net, to play on both sides of the puck," Mike Sullivan replied when I brought this up. "Some nights, the puck will go in the net for us. Other nights, it won't. A game like tonight, it's a 1-0 game, and we've got to learn how to play in those types of environments. I thought the guys did a good job tonight."

They did. It was still high-event hockey, with 98 combined shot attempts at five-on-five -- Pittsburgh 50, Anaheim 48 -- but one-third of the Ducks' 15 overall high-danger chances came in the frantic finish with the goaltender pulled for the extra attacker. And the Ducks' defensemen got only seven shots through to DeSmith at even-strength.

Not to deflect credit from DeSmith. His shutout included a handful of precisely the sharp, show-stopping saves he'd been missing most of this season. But the commonality in this equation's been, all along, the collective commitment to preventing goals.

And I'm here to repeat, yet again, that I love it.

Not just because it's an exciting, entertaining way to go about defending -- which it is, as it requires a hair-on-fire pursuit of the puck over the entire 200x85 of ice, plus an equal emphasis on keeping it once it's possessed -- but more so because this team ... no, this franchise can't keep assuming that winning championships via superstars is still an option. It isn't. And it hasn't been ever since Evgeny Kuznetsov slid that backhander through Matt Murray's five-hole.

This, my friends, is what playoff teams do ... once they're in the playoffs.

And this, in turn, is why it's time to take all the skill, all the speed that's still here and apply it across the board -- no exceptions for Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, anyone -- toward a system that's been proven to work with full participation. Be very sure that's what Sullivan's referencing when he says this group has to "learn how to play in those types of environments." He's talking, without saying so, about playoffs. He's talking, without saying so, about three straight first-round exits.

Man, this is a good hockey team. Really is. It's got shortcomings and uncertainties, sure. And it's yet to have a single day of functioning at full strength, with Crosby missing so much time, Malkin still out, and now Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, too. But what's being built, regardless of any variables, is beginning to show, in its own way, more promise than anything we'd seen in recent seasons.

Don't ask me, though. Ask the other guys.

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

Drew O'Connor tries to poke the puck through the Ducks' Sam Carrick and John Gibson.

• Again, I'm not deflecting credit from DeSmith. He was "terrific," as Sullivan assessed. But his rebound's in its infancy -- his first W came just this past Monday in Seattle -- and it feels fair to be guarded.

He cited, as most backups do when they're fresh off a struggle, getting a couple of starts in short order.

“Obviously, having played recently helps a lot,” DeSmith said. “The more I get in the net, the more comfortable I become. That's one thing. Then, I've just been working on kind of getting back to playing my game, playing a little bit more on my toes, a little bit more athletic. Not playing as stiff and boring of a game as I was playing earlier, I think.”

Wait, what?

I had to ask what "stiff and boring" meant:

" "

“To be honest, it was a skate issue,” DeSmith answered. “I was in these skates, and they were just different than the ones I was used to. It was kinda throwing me back on my heels. My weight was always on my heels, so I didn’t feel explosive. It’s really hard to make saves when your weight is back. So I just started lacing my skates differently and went back to normal. I felt a lot better after I started doing that. That was a big part of it.”

It seemed plausible that he'd have needed extra time to climb all the way back from the nasty groin tear he had late last season, but ... hey, whatever works.

It'll be a boon to the process to have two competent goaltenders rather than one.

• Not that my vote counts, but he can have the Sabres next Friday. And that's it. Looking over the schedule, I'd still go with Tristan Jarry in four of the next five heading into the three-day Christmas break.

Bear in mind, this is still an Olympic year until it isn't. The non-participating players are going to get a three-week break in February, and Jarry's not making Team Canada, so normal wear-and-tear worries don't apply. Even if the NHL players beg off Beijing, there'll still be a significant break.

• McGinn isn't Brandon Tanev. He was acquired to replace Tanev, but they're not the same player.

Mostly because this one might be better:

" "

Time will tell on this front, too, but McGinn scoring this game's lone goal gives him seven for the season, to go with four assists and his contributions to the PK. Tanev's got one more goal and two more assists in the same number of games for the Kraken, though it's worth noting that expansion-team players can be put into more prominent roles and benefit from better shift-starting spots on the rink.

Regardless, dude's a player.

That one-timer up there, at 5:12 of the first period, surprised exactly no one among the 17,435 on hand. And neither did his superb twin retrievals and resultant clear on an Anaheim power play to open the second.

"I've just grown a greater appreciation for the subtleties of his game, the more I see him every day," Sullivan said of McGinn. "He's a gritty player, a hard-nosed player. He plays an honest game. He's a really smart player, he has good awareness, he's always in the right position, he's got a willingness to block shots, he's got an offensive dimension to his game, a physical dimension to his game. His play with Teddy ... that was my first thought when we signed him. And I think they've played really well together."

I asked McGinn if he'd felt any pressure in arriving as a clear replacement for Tanev, including offensively.

"I just wanted to play my game," McGinn replied. "I think I always believed in my offense. Coming here to Pittsburgh, I feel like I've got a lot more confidence to my game, a lot more confidence with the puck. Hopefully, it continues to grow, and we can continue to have success."

• Do me a favor and go back up and tap play on the goal again. Note the start of the sequence from Chad Ruhwedel, sweeping away a pass from in front of DeSmith, where two Ducks awaited, then whirling behind the net to begin the rush.

He's a top-six defenseman now and, silently as ever, he's been solid.

"Just like Case said, the more you play, the more the confidence builds," was Ruhwedel's assessment of his assist.

• The primary assist went to Aston-Reese, whose greater contribution even than the backhand feed to McGinn might've been playing through an anticipated whistle.

"We thought it was offside," Aston-Reese recalled of his zone entry, even though it wasn't:

" "

• That led to an equally odd delay, one in which Eakins and his staff on the Anaheim bench apparently couldn't get the replay view they needed on their iPad and, as a result, asked referees Tom Chmielewski and Conor O'Donnell for extra time to decide whether they should challenge.

Which, for some reason, was granted.

Sullivan was livid on the home team's bench over this, and understandably so. The Ducks never had to get charged a timeout for a lost challenge since, hey, they never challenged.

What a league. Making it up as they go.

• The PK going 2 for 2 marked a franchise-record 13th consecutive game without allowing a power-play goal, in addition to extending the streak to 30 kills.

I asked Sullivan if there might be one facet that's jumped out at him.

"It's a combination of all of them," he began before adding right away, "I think our faceoff percentage is improved."

I confirmed that: The Penguins' short-handed faceoff winning percentage last season was 41.0% for 27th in the NHL. This season, it's 51.2% for fifth.

"When we win the first faceoff and get 200-foot clears ... I've always been a strong believer in that first clear," Sullivan continued. "You're forcing a team to have to go all the way back behind their net, and then it takes 20-plus seconds to gain access to your zone. And then, if you can be be stingy on the zone entry, teams have to expend a lot of energy getting the puck back in our zone. So by nature of that alone, I think that's really gone a long way to limit the time in our zone."

Of the 30 individual players in the league who've taken 50-plus short-handed faceoffs, Blueger's fifth-best at 53.3%.

• That's four wins in a row, by the way, and at least a temporary restraining order on the end of the world:

DKPS

• Quiet night for Sid, with no points, two shots, three shot attempts. His whole line was meh, actually, certainly compared to the previous night in D.C.

• The fourth line, on the other hand, was otherworldly: In 7:16 of ice time at five-on-five, Brian Boyle, Dominik Simon and Drew O'Connor were on the rink for 14 shot attempts by the Penguins, one by the Ducks. And it was all three who were that effective.

Vital showing, considering the back-to-back nights.

• Thanks, as always, for reading.

• Feel free to share with family, friends and anyone in need of a little bonus joy this time of year:

It has been 17,000 days since the Philadelphia Flyers last won a Stanley Cup. pic.twitter.com/cnqDyQmGGb
— SinceFlyersLastCup (@SinceFlyersCup) December 11, 2021