Kovacevic: Penguins finally heeding Sullivan's pleas to defend first

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Marcus Pettersson sensed that Kris Letang might be in some trouble.

So by the time Letang, back below the Pittsburgh goal line, had picked up his chin to see an oncoming forechecker, he'd already heard Pettersson's shout from the other side of the net: 'YEAH!' And he simply banked the beginning of a smooth, team-wide breakout off the end boards, onto Pettersson's waiting blade and right up ice.

"It's working together," Pettersson would explain to me later. "It's being there for each other."

It's Penguins 3, Jets 0.

It's a 32-save Tristan Jarry shutout. It's a mega-icebreaking goal by Jason Zucker 53 seconds into the third period. It's insurance from Bryan Rust. It's another empty-netter by Jake Guentzel. And yet, above and beyond all else on this subzero Saturday night inside Canada Life Centre, it was a whole lotta little stuff like the scenario I just laid out.

All over the rink. All 60 minutes. Against an opponent that's been among the NHL's best so far this season. Against Connor Hellebuyck, one of the planet's premier goaltenders.

I'd call it the performance of the year to date. But Mike Sullivan, as ever, found a more pointed way of putting it.

"I think we've been making progress," he'd say. "This was one of our more conscientious games. Playing a one-goal hockey game, I think, is really a good experience for us to go through. You have to be diligent with the puck and just make sure you have an element of patience associated with your game so you don't force something that's not there. I thought that, in the third period, our guys did a really good job of that."

Yeah, "conscientious" definitely fits. 

Because, if I'm being blunt, what'd been missing from these Penguins' approach, more than anything, was the mindset. When they'd win, it's because they'd score a touchdown. Which generally would occur because they'd face somebody's backup between the pipes.

That's an unsustainable formula to the extreme, even if a roster isn't founded on the pulse of mid-30-somethings. But taking into account the relative age, adding in an inherent tendency among star-type talent to forgo defensive assignments, then sprinkling on top ... oh, you know, four consecutive first-round exits from the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it couldn't have been any clearer what three things needed to occur:

1. Defend.
2. That means everyone.
3. Yeah, Jarry, too.

And to that end, as I was told on this trip, heading into the first stop in St. Paul, Minn., Sullivan and his full staff immersed themselves in information that'd been produced by the Penguins' growing analytics team back home, then shared it with the players where applicable.

"We learned a lot," one player told me after this game. "It really made it obvious that we needed to tighten up."

They began that in St. Paul, as I'd written in a borderline defensive tone for anyone who would've misgauged the 6-4 final of that victory over the Wild as being more of the same. But they still weren't getting the big save from Jarry, and that masked the progress.

Not an issue in this one:

That's what'd been missing, my friends.

Jarry was in peak form here, front to finish. Stood tall. Shoulders square to the shooter. Aggressive, occasionally nasty when the Jets' big bodies would crowd his crease. Sullivan would add, "He was tracking the puck. He was in control. He was big. He made good decisions. I liked everything about his game."

I asked Jarry if he might've gotten a jolt from that early save up there on Josh Morrissey, and he wanted nothing to do with the notion. He never does when he's emerging from a slump, large or small.

"I think it's just making sure you're doing the little things right," he'd reply. "There's maybe a little extra video here or there. Some good practices. That always helps."

Hey, whatever works. One game can't wipe away a month, but it's the first sign of a reversal in a little too long.

The rest, as I saw it, just hit a crescendo. It wasn't just Teddy Blueger and the defensive guys getting it done. Evgeni Malkin turned in his top 200-foot effort of the season, and I'm not doing it justice with that phrasing. He was, as Sullivan would tell me afterward, "everywhere." So was Sidney Crosby. And Guentzel, who whisked back to cover for a defenseman and foil a break for Blake Wheeler.

"Total effort," was what Zucker called it, and that doesn't do it justice, either.

"We needed to stop giving teams easy looks," was how Pettersson came at it. "There's a lot more to it than just saying to defend harder. You've got to be smarter. And there's gotta be that support. We've got to be there for each other and, if we're the ones in trouble, we've got to trust that our teammates will be there for us."

All of that.

This counts, too: None of what happened here magically materialized on the flights to Minnesota or Manitoba. Truth is, the Penguins had been building toward better defending for a couple weeks before that dud earlier in the week against the Maple Leafs. But this trip, evidently, afforded them the chance to recalibrate and, in the process, set Jarry straight. Both of which happened.

Onward now to Chicago to try to sweep the trip and, ideally, someone will remember to pack the blueprint for the flight home.

GETTY

The Jets' Josh Morrissey checks Jake Guentzel in the third period Saturday night in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

• I've got a separate Freeze Frame analysis of the Zucker goal. It's required reading. Because almost no one read my one from St. Paul, and I'm easily discouraged.

• Each team registered 32 shots, and each team registered 56 shot attempts, and each team registered 13 high-danger scoring chances. That's obviously as even it gets, but it also was entertaining throughout, if only because both were battling for every inch -- sorry, centimeter -- of ice.

That's to be expected of any Rick Bowness team, but it sure seemed to catch the Jets off guard to have to face it.

"They weren't really pushing for that next one," Winnipeg center Adam Lowry would say. "It almost seemed like they were content to sit above us and really slow things down through the neutral zone. It seemed like you had an outlet and you hit him, and there was no speed to kind of get in on the forecheck. And they flipped a lot of pucks out. It's frustrating to play when a team's content to do that, but they have to defend well to do that."

• Not to make too big a deal of this but, as God is my witness, in the final 10 minutes of the third, with the Penguins still up by just one, they sent only one forechecker into the Winnipeg zone. Even Sid stayed out by the blue line.

Which is OK. Not to be that guy, but if they'd done a little of that against the Rangers in the playoffs ... all right, enough.

• Rust's goal came after Sid stole the puck from Hellebuyck, who'd been backpedaling after heading halfway to the Winnipeg bench for the extra attacker:

Ouch.

But believe me, he'll take it. He'd gone the previous seven games without a point and with a team-worst minus-11 rating, the latter of which apparently bugged him more.

When I asked how it felt to finally get one, he deadpanned, "It feels good not being a minus for the first time in three weeks."

As I wrote in the Friday column from here, never worry about him.

• Not all was rosy: The third line of Jeff Carter between Brock McGinn and Danton Heinen didn't generate a single shot attempt while conceding eight. That's ... hard to do. And if I'm telling it like it is, the majority of that can be hung on Carter, the only player in white on this night who didn't seem invested in defending.

• It's not always about age. Geno's buzzing about in a way I can't recall seeing from him in years. Sunday night sees his 1,000th NHL game, and he's looking like he could reach 2,000.

• How cold?

This cold:

Take this from someone who kinda likes it here: I'm not into minus temps of any variety. I didn't even bother crossing the street to shoot the statue because my hands had already gone numb.

• A doubly moving pregame ceremony here saw both teams align at the center circle to commemorate the global battle against cancer ...

GETTY

Before the opening faceoff Saturday night in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

... followed by the iconic Hoosli Ukrainian Men's Chorus bringing the house down by belting out both anthems. Winnipeg's got one of the largest Ukrainian populations in North America, so one can imagine the extra emotion:

• Thanks for reading my hockey stuff. Especially from up here.

DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

The new Dale Hawerchuk statue/plaza along Hargrave Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Canada Life Centre:

1. Tristan Jarry, Penguins G
2. Evgeni Malkin, Penguins C
3. Mark Scheifele, Jets C

THE INJURIES

• No one. For real. Two games in a row now.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan's lines and defense pairings:

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

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

And for Bowness' Jets:

Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Sam Gagner
Cole Perfetti-Pierre-Luc Dubois-Blake Wheeler
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby-Adam Lowry-Mychal Eyssimont
Dominic Toninato-David Gustafsson-Saku Maenalanen

Josh Morrissey-Neal Pionk
Brenden Dillon-Nate Schmidt
Dylan Samberg-Kyle Capobianco

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins flew overnight to Chicago, where they'll complete this three-game trip against the Blackhawks, 7:08 p.m. Eastern, at the United Center. Taylor Haase is flying over to cover that, while I fly home to cover Steelers-Bengals at Acrisure Stadium.

THE CONTENT

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