MONTRÉAL -- If Mike Sullivan were bilingual, he probably would have spoken it in French, too.
Asked somewhat whimsically after the Penguins' 5-1 crushing of the Canadiens on this Saturday night at Bell Centre if he'd been surprised that Sidney Crosby rose up with a season-high four-point performance in what unquestionably was the most critical point in the team's season to date, he came back drop-dead seriously.
"No, it doesn't," he began. "Sid understands the position we're in. He understands the stakes are high at this time of year, and he's doing everything he can to help this team win. He just plays the game the right way. He plays on both sides of the puck, he's good defensively, and I think it's obvious what he does offensively in helping us score goals. He's the best 200-foot player in the game."
There it is.
Again.
And yet, seemingly never enough.
Because on a night that saw Crosby score his 440th goal to pass Jaromir Jagr for second on the franchise's all-time list, that saw him achieve the 80-point plateau for the 10th time, that saw the best 200-foot player in the game require only 21 seconds to beat the best goaltender in the game ... he did so much more.
"To have a front row seat," Jake Guentzel would say after two goals of his own, "you can see he's taking this team over and doing it every night. We're lucky to have a guy like that, that brings it every night and is really carrying us."
But hey, let's start with the fun stuff.
This was the instant icebreaker:
Jared McCann, installed on the top line for the first time in a move Sullivan explained was aimed at countering the Canadiens' speed, made an immediate impact with a keep along the left boards followed by a chin-up, blade-to-blade feed for Crosby down low.
Logic might have dictated a quick release on Carey Price there, as he couldn't have been set, but Crosby instead dished back to Guentzel, which lured away Montreal defenseman Jeff Petry, who's No. 26 in rouge up there and was about to be minus-1 on the scoresheet. That's because Guentzel himself eschewed logic in favor of pushing back to Crosby for a lightning-like redirect that skipped off the pipe, then Price's left skate and homeward.
"That give-and-go ... you can see how quickness is always such a big part of his game," Shea Weber, another Montreal defenseman, would observe. "Everything he does, the way he moves, the way he turns his stick, it's just so quick."
The next one, at 4:38, was a simple cross-point setup on the power play to Evgeni Malkin for a short-side laser ...
... but then that quickness became a factor again, only this time it was twofold:
Crosby dueled Nate Thompson at the Montreal left dot and, for the briefest of moments, the puck actually lay flat on the ice between them, a rarity on any faceoff. But Crosby was that much quicker with his second swipe and whipped it back to Guentzel, who he knew had lined up directly behind him.
This didn't fool the Canadiens. Paul Byron, their winger on the inside hash, immediately dashed toward Guentzel in a shot-block formation. But Guentzel rendered that moot with a ridiculous release, one that scorched Price before a single Montreal player had a chance to swivel around for a glance.
"Great shot by Jake, to get it off that quick," Crosby told me.
I asked Guentzel about the challenge of being braced for that shot, as well as the work he and Crosby put into the play:
The fourth and final of Crosby's points probably was the prettiest, if that's plausible:
I mean, what have I got to add to that?
Other than maybe this: Watch their blades. Both of them. Watch Guentzel's curl back upon broaching the blue line to drop to Crosby. Then watch Crosby's blade pointing to the inside of the rink, only to curl his ensuing pass between Brett Kulak's wickets. Then watch Guentzel accept that pass from his blind side on his backhand, then turn it over to his forehand before ripping one top-shelf behind Price.
That's not right. That's making opponents look stupid at the NHL level. It's damned near uncomfortable to watch.
So, just to re-humanize this analysis, here also are two examples of Crosby doing boring '200-foot' things:
Follow Phillip Danault, No. 24 for the Canadiens up there, right through the Pittsburgh slot. Because that's precisely what Crosby did on this diligent backcheck, followed by a calm stickhandling swing to safe territory before backhanding the puck out of danger.
Maybe he saved a goal, and maybe he didn't, but why bother to find out?
I appreciated this one that much more:
Erik Gudranson's been pretty good since his arrival, but this was a big misstep for the big guy. He inexplicably backpedaled into the Pittsburgh zone, was preyed upon by two red sweaters, then knocked to the ice by Artturi Lehknonen. Which would have left Marcus Petterrson fending off a three-on-one ... had it not been for Crosby swooping back, shouldering Byron off the puck, breezily claiming possession, then calmly breaking out up the left side.
I had a theoretically long list of questions I'd have loved to have asked the captain about all of the above, but I know better by now than to expect him to focus on anything other than the collective result.
So ...
Oh, and should the need ever arise for Sullivan, here it is: "Il est le meilleur deux-cent-pieds joueur dans le jeu."
