Kovacevic: Needed blue-line upgrades already paying both-end dividends

It's not as if Jan Rutta didn't have options.

The puck had just popped back to him at the right point, thanks to a beauty of a backhand bank pass by Evgeni Malkin. The Kings' Arthur Kaliyev began pursuing that pass to pressure Rutta, but again, he had all kinds of ways he could've gone.

Could've banked it right back to Malkin, who'd presented his blade for precisely that. The way Mark Friedman might've.

Or he could've banged it all the way behind the net, the way Chad Ruhwedel might've.

Or he could've spun around, senselessly dragged it deep in the corner and done ... uh, nothing, the way John Marino might've.

Or he could've seen himself as a millennial-age Bobby Orr, dipsy-doodled past Kaliyev and dazzled us all into ... uh, nothing, the way Mike Matheson might've.

Or hey, our man could've just done this:

And there it was, my friends: Not only the simplest, the smartest of all conceivable choices in that scenario. Not only the icebreaking goal of what'd wind up a 6-1 crowning for the Penguins over the Kings on this Thursday. But also, and maybe above all, the likeliest answer to the most common question surrounding this team's promising start, now at 3-0-1. 

Which is to say, of course: Something's different about these guys, but what?

Well, let's open with what's above. Because that sort of sequence was way, way more sorely needed in these parts than most might've realized. Highlighted by nothing more than steering that puck through traffic.

I asked Rutta afterward to share his thought process:

"Yeah, like, we didn't have a good start," Rutta replied, referring to the Kings registering 13 of the first 16 shots. "You know, I was just trying to create something. We had a pretty forecheck going, we're going against a team that usually plays man-on-man, so ... I was just putting it on the net."

The nerve of this dude, right?

I mean, who does he think he is "just putting it on the net?" In Pittsburgh? Where there's always a prettier or more pointless play to be made?

No, seriously, this is awesome. And it's not an accident, as I'd affirm later with Mike Sullivan by asking to what extent the coaching staff and upper management had hoped to have this infused upon replacing half their defense corps from the previous season.

 "We're always working on trying to get pucks through and get pucks down to the net," Sullivan began his typically thoughtful answer. "I think it's an important skill in today's game with the layers of shot blockers, the way teams defend ... it's a skill, without a doubt. We work on it all the time with our guys. But as with most skills, some guys are better at it than others."

Bingo, as Geno might say.

"Just having the ability to get your eyes up," Sullivan kept going, "sometimes you've got to change your angle to be able to get a puck through. Jeff's goal, I think, was a great example of that."

Jeff Petry, he meant, and it sure was:

This is a power play by the No. 2 unit that made it 4-0. And what makes it happen, in addition to Danton Heinen's feed and literally every other black sweater stomping all over Jonathan Quick's lawn, is that last little glide by Petry to find a lane by Phillip Danault, one of the NHL's premier defensive forwards, as well as that last little look.

"Just the awareness of delivering a puck down there knowing that we have people there, and getting it by the first set of shin pads," Sullivan proceeded. "Being able to deliver that puck down there is, without a doubt, such as an important skill in today's game. I think Jeff's really good at it."

Mm-hm. And unless I've lost my ability to grasp Sully-speak, that's also the head coach's graceful, tactful way of acknowledging this had been lacking in 2021-22. Just as he had a week ago when I'd brought up the improved breakouts with this defensive group.

It's a better group. It just is.

And nothing, as I'd written from Manhattan on the very night of the Game 7 loss to the Rangers, was going to matter more when it came to year-over-year improvement. Partly because no self-respecting NHL defense should blow two-goal leads in both Games 5 and 6, then a third-period lead in Game 7. Partly because, in an area that might've gone under-recognized on the outside, no self-respecting NHL defense should contribute as little toward the offense as this one did all through 2021-22. Which is to say, if it wasn't Kris Letang contributing, it wasn't anyone. He had 69 points, Matheson 31, Marino 25, everyone else far less.

Four games doesn't make for even a fraction of a season, but the current corps already has contributed two goals, 13 assists (four of them primary) for a league-best 15 points -- one more than Cale Makar's Avalanche -- plus they've got 31 shots on goal, 68 shot attempts and, no less pivotal, they've pitched in on 15 of the Penguins' league-best 20 goals.

Petry's goal was Sullivan's cited example of getting a puck through, but his two assists were prime examples of the latter:

All right, so Rakell steals the highlight with the acrobatic backhand beauty. And Los Angeles' wingers, Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala, both look like they'd rather be cruising Sunset Boulevard. But Petry reads that Marcus Pettersson's spoonfeeding him a one-timer, and he gets all of it ... low and on net, so that there's a rebound or a redirect or something, anything more significant than a bang off the glass.

I asked Petry to what extent he prioritizes just getting the puck through, particularly given that he was partners with the sport's premier shooter, Shea Weber, in Montreal for so many years:

"It's always been important to me," came the reply. "If you've got time to really lean into one ... there's a time for that. But for me, especially on the power play of even five-on-five, when those forwards are doing the work down low, you've got to reward them for being there. When I'm scaling the line and see a lane, I'm just trying to get the puck to the net."

Now check this out:

My goodness. There's springing someone for a breakaway, and then there's doing what Petry -- from the left side! -- and Kasperi Kapanen did to launch Jeff Carter toward a five-hole tuck through his old bud Jonathan Quick.

Let's not pretend that burst from the back wasn't missing last season, as well.

I'll give it up here for Ron Hextall and Brian Burke. I'd advocated for even more change on defense and, to be blunt, my worry about this edition of Brian Dumoulin hasn't diminished. But between Petry and Rutta -- and soon, presumably, Ty Smith, up from Wilkes-Barre -- they'll have emphatically addressed the defense helping the offense both at the start and the finish. It's a facet that still consumes too much payroll, but it's the right placement at the right time considering all of the other potential free-agent losses up front from occurring.

Youth hockey coaches routinely teach their novice players that the puck moves faster than they can skate.

Reasonable antidote for getting older, too, huh?

EDDIE PROVIDENT / DKPS

Jeff Petry and Marcus Pettersson sandwich the Kings' Gabriel Vilardi in the second period Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.

• There's no flaw that this team has which can't be masked by Tristan Jarry performing as he did here, with a 39-save gem that might seem moot because of the score but most assuredly wasn't, as Danny Shirey reports.

All I'll add is a repeat of a repeat: This is a top-five goaltender in the NHL.

• He also wears silly helmets and makes super-short speeches:

• Thirteen different Penguins had a point, and only Petry had more than one. Members of all four forward lines had at least one goal. The second power-play unit and the penalty-killers each scored. 

There are no circumstances in which that's a negative.

• The lone negative on this night, those first few minutes aside, was Jake Guentzel leaving in the third period after a redirected Letang shot caught him in the area of the right ear. This after the Kings' resident dirtbag, Brendan Lemieux -- son of one of the NHL's all-time dirtbags, Claude Lemieux, not coincidentally -- rammed his shoulder into Jake's head. Jake bounced back from the latter but not the puck.

Seeing Jake skate off under his own power was uplifting, though. Seemed fully alert and all that.

All Sullivan would share afterward was that Jake's being "evaluated." More should be known following the Friday noon practice in Cranberry.

• Zucker planting his rear end in front of Los Angeles goaltenders directly led to two goals, only the recent samples of his indispensable energy.

Loved Sullivan's terminology for it: "He's just a menace out there. He's relentless on the puck pursuit game. He's bringing physicality. He's going to the net. And I think he's creating opportunities for his linemates or the power play that he's on because of it. That's the game that we envisioned he would bring to our team, and I think we finally got a healthy Zuck that's excited to play. I think he's bringing his best right now."

I'll wait for all the superstitious types to knock on some wood before the next bullet.

• If we're all keeping it real, the Penguins have been blessed to run into some dubious goal prevention in these four games: The Coyotes are a defensive disaster, the Lightning used Brian Elliott rather than Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal, and neither Cal Petersen nor Quick offered much resistance in this one, with the former getting yanked after three goals on ninth shots.

"I guess with Cal, there's no secret we have to get him going," Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan would say. "He has to play like he can play. He's an NHL goaltender. He's an outstanding young man who's played extremely well at this level. We're trying, just like we would with forwards and defensemen, to get him to where he can be."

Man, when your head coach has to remind everyone of your pedigree ...

Sullivan himself conceded after this game that the Penguins enjoyed some "puck luck" along the way to a third consecutive six-goal output on home ice.

My point: There'll be better goaltenders ahead. As in, almost all of them.

• The Kings, a legit fun team that'd won three in a row on the road before this, weren't exactly kicking themselves afterward, and it's easy to surmise why: Jarry stopped all 17 of their shots in the first period, and they trailed, 3-0, after which a whole lot of zip seemed to be zapped.

“As bad as the score was, I didn’t think our play was that bad,” the one and only Anze Kopitar would say. “Just a couple tough breaks, we’re down 3-0, and then you’re obviously playing catch-up, trying to make something happen. It didn’t happen tonight.”

Longtime readers will know I go all fanboy over Kopitar's style of play. Always have, whether covering him in the NHL or when he was a one-man Slovenian team taking on Russia -- with Vladimir Putin in attendance -- at the Sochi Olympics. With his dad as head coach and a bunch of nobodies off the streets of Ljubljana as his supporting cast. And almost prevailing. I'll never forget it.

• Geno was on the other side that day, naturally. He's still pretty good, too. Flying again in this one. Assist, two shots, a game-high four takeaways and an 11-3 romp in the circles.

• Kopitar's cap hit this season is $10 million, same as it'll be next season, after which it expires. He's 35.

Geno's cap hit is $6.1 million. He's 36. And people complained about this.

• Sullivan's 300th victory with the Penguins will be just another milestone on a long run of many more, as he's already the franchise's winningest head coach and he just signed a monster extension this summer.

But still, the player-first focus with which he accepts such honors never gets old.

"It's humbling. It means a lot. I'm grateful to the players," he'd say on this night. "They're the guys that go out there and earn the wins for us, and these guys that I've been coaching in my time here work so hard to bring the success that we've had on the ice. They're the ones that make the sacrifices every day to make us the competitive team that we are. I'm grateful for that."

Reminds me of the first words that came from his mouth that night in San Jose when he raised the Stanley Cup over his head, looking right at a group of players and shouting, "You guys are the best!"

• Awesome to see Eddie Johnston, age 86 and still active as ever at the rink. More awesome by far to hear his unconditional approval of Jarry's nasty stick whack across Lemieux's right knee.

Did that a time or two yourself, huh, E.J.?

"Ohhhhhhhh, yeah," he'd tell me. "And those hurt."

• Thanks for reading. I love writing about hockey, and I hope it shows.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Jeff Petry, Penguins D
2. Tristan Jarry, Penguins G
3. Jan Rutta, Penguins D

THE INJURIES

• Jake Guentzel, left winger, left in the third period of this game after being struck in the right ear area by a deflected shot.

• Teddy Blueger, center, participated in the morning skate. He's still day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen-Jeff Carter-Kasperi Kapanen
Brock McGinn-Ryan Poehling-Josh Archibald

Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph-Jan Rutta

And for McLellan's Kings:

Kevin Fiala-Anze Kopitar-Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore-Phillip Danault-Viktor Arvidsson
Arthur Kaliyev-Quinton Byfield-Gabriel Vilardi
Brendan Lemieux-Blake Lizotte-Carl Grundstrom

Mikey Anderson-Drew Doughty
Sean Durzi-Matt Roy
Brandt Clarke-Sean Walker

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins will practice Friday, 12 p.m., in Cranberry, then play in Columbus the next day, then fly way out to Edmonton to begin a four-game Western swing. Danny Shirey will cover the practice and Columbus, and Taylor Haase will fly to Alberta.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

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