BOSTON -- "There it is!"
Kasperi Kapanen's voice boomed those three words loud enough to bounce throughout Warrior Ice Arena. It was early Monday evening, the Penguins were halfway through a strikingly spirited practice at the Bruins' facility, and Kapanen had achieved in that moment ... a pretty nice pass on a two-on-one drill. Backhand-saucered the puck over Mark Friedman, toward the blade of Jeff Carter, and it plopped right into place.
That was it. That was Kapanen's cue to shout.
Or was it?
Because in the next split-second, by the time Carter had gone bar-down over Casey DeSmith's glove, Kapanen had already started skating in the other direction with a playful nod of his head.
Yeah, that was it.
After which Carter had to chase after Kapanen to thank him for essentially willing that rush into a goal.
It was a practice. Not anything more. Not even if it was the Penguins' first in emerging from the NHL's All-Star break. Not even if it came in the continuing shadow of a four-game losing streak. Not even if had to be, in the eyes of all concerned, critically important to go zero-to-60 in time for the Tuesday, 7:08 p.m. faceoff against the Bruins at TD Garden.
"My hope is that we've all had an opportunity to get away from the game a little bit, and recharge our batteries, so to speak," Sullivan replied when I asked what he'd just witnessed over an hour-plus on the ice that included several scenes like the one detailed above. "We need to attack this second half with a whole lot of energy, a whole lot of enthusiasm that I think our team is capable of playing with. And when we do, we're at our best. One of our objectives moving forward is to try to continue to play with the pace and the energy and the enthusiasm that we need to put our very best game on the ice."
Listen to the man.
Heck, listen to the ice being carved up:
Sixteen games in 29 days is what preceded this break, but it's now in the past. Damage done. Lessons learned. And now, without any qualifiers beyond the standard stuff -- oh, hey, Evgeni Malkin popped up on the COVID list, everyone -- there's another chance to rev it up all over again.
A third chance, if one really thinks about it.
They opened the season absent almost a third of the roster, yet set an over-caffeinated Tasmanian Devil's pace through the first two games in Florida, followed by a 7-1 mauling of the Maple Leafs upon returning home. That wouldn't hold up through all of October, but the template had been set, and it'd rebound big-time come mid-November with some of the most superlative collective hockey seen in our parts in some time.
And remember, the Penguins had another, though unexpected, restart in early January after the 13-day COVID shutdown. One that saw them extend a spectacular 17-2 tear, even though they were seldom at their defensive best.
So, here's No. 3.
"Those last two weeks were a grind," Marcus Pettersson replied when I brought this up. "I think the break came at a good time for us to kind of regroup, to get away from it a little bit. It's a sprint now. Everybody's had their rest. And we've just got to get back at it real quick and not try to ease into it. Just get back on the horse. It was a good practice today for us to kind of get back in the the pace mindset and the speed of it."
"We have success when we kinda roll four lines over and take it to teams," Evan Rodrigues replied when I did likewise with him. "I think, lately, we've been relying on our power play a little bit too much, almost waiting for a power play to happen. Sometimes it's hard when you don't get out there for a while, but you've just got to stick with it. stay confident, stay consistent. When we play a fast, four-line game, I don't think anyone can stop us."
Unlike Kapanen, I'm not into predictions, so I'm not about to lay out some decisive line for Penguins vs. Bruins here. And unlike Rodrigues, I'm not about get all bold, like that last line of his there. But it seems safe to suggest that the home team Tuesday night will be in for a scrap with some peak-level pace, energy and enthusiasm.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Bobby Orr statue in front of TD Garden's recently added retail facade, Monday night, Boston.
• The scene detailed above notwithstanding, Kapanen is just an outrageous practice performer. Head and shoulders above, at times.
What happens in the games?
Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, he can enter an attacking zone without ever having to pull up at the blue line, curl around, fall down and whatever other messes he digs for himself by not simply skating in a straight line.
That drives the coaches nuts, but they see this, as well, and they know what he could be if he'd ever just take heed.
• Malkin will miss at least the next two games, here and then Thursday in Ottawa, the latter due to Canadian border restrictions. Sullivan didn't cite Sunday in Newark, N.J., for a possible return, but he didn't rule it out, either.
Carter will take his place, per the lines utilized in this practice:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
McGinn-Carter-Kapanen
Heinen-Rodrigues-Zohorna
Aston-Reese-Boyle-Simon
O'Connor-Chaput-Puustinen
Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Marino
Matheson-Ruhwedel
Friedman
But maybe the more significant move within those combos was Rodrigues, who's gone 13 games without a goal, sliding back to center.
As Sullivan reiterated Monday, "We like Evan at center," and I'll echo that with cherries on top. Rodrigues was flying through the neutral zone at that position, gaining the attacking blue line and, with surprising frequency, creating his own offense off the rush.
But once Malkin returned, the coaching staff opted to keep Carter at center rather than moving him to right wing, where he'd spent most of his career in Los Angeles. That left Rodrigues out on the wing and, obviously, out of luck.
I asked Rodrigues how much he'd appreciate center anew.
"I think playing center helps," he replied. "You know, sometimes things are a little more static up and down the wing. You don't get the puck in the middle of the ice as much. So hopefully, playing center here tomorrow, getting some touches early, getting the puck in the middle of rink will help that and, yeah, just kind of go from there."
• So determined is Sullivan to get Rodrigues going that he's making the somewhat awkward adjustment of having Radim Zohorna, a left-handed natural center, move to the right wing on his line.
• Can't say this enough: When everyone's healthy, put Carter on Malkin's right. It's a no-brainer. His straight-ahead style's a perfect match for Malkin's career-long preference, he guns like crazy, and he can step in for right-handed faceoffs.
Kapanen can ... be awesome in practice.
• Expect Danton Heinen to be back in the lineup Tuesday after missing a week and change to an unidentified upper-body injury. Full participant in practice, labeled by Sullivan "a game-time decision," the whole deal.
His own scoring slump of 10 games has been overshadowed by Rodrigues', but it shouldn't be. This player doesn't accomplish nearly as much as Rodrigues when he isn't putting the puck in the net. Needs to get back to that post-haste.
• Let the record show that All-Stars Jake Guentzel and Tristan Jarry were allowed by their labor agreement to skip this practice. They most certainly didn't.
• Valtteri Puustinen, the 22-year-old winger who's been Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's leading scorer with 13 goals and 14 assists in 40 games, was recalled from the AHL for the first time. He and journeyman forward Michael Chaput were the two promoted before this practice, and both partook.
I thought this might afford another chance to sound over the top in describing Puustinen's potential, heaping onto what I'd begun back in training camp when he clearly was the most gifted youngster on the ice. But Sullivan beat me to that, and in a big way:
"He's in much better shape now than he was when he came to training camp, and I think he deserves a whole lot of credit for that and how hard he's worked with the strength and conditioning guys in Wilkes, the coaching staff down there, and his nutrition and his diet," Sullivan said as part of the nearly two-minute answer to my question seen in the video above. "Everyone is ecstatic with the development that he's shown to this point. We're excited about potentially where he could go moving forward.”
Think they like this kid a little?
• Not enough love's being given, it feels, to the season Pettersson's had. So sound, so solid and owner of a 52.45 Corsi For percentage at five-on-five.
"I think the start for me was really, really good," he said Monday, referring to this season. "I feel like last year, too, I had a good start before kind of getting injured and then I didn't get back to where I wanted to be. This year, I wanted to bring consistency into it a little bit more. You're going to have off-nights every now and then, but make sure the off-nights are still consistent and you're not making mistakes that you typically don't. So I feel like I reflected a little bit, and just what I can tell you is that my lowest level has been way higher this year. I'm going to try keep that going."
Interesting way of looking at it, huh?
Not to compare people's intelligence, but this one's got to be right at or near the top with this group.
• By the way, the current top 10 in that advanced category among NHL defensemen is crazy:
NATURAL STAT TRICK
• I'll have the game Tuesday, as well as the 11:30 a.m. morning skate. Which won't be an optional, by the way. That's really rare following a practice the previous day, but Sullivan evidently wants to see more of what he just saw.
Thanks for reading, as always!
