"He's a tough guy to replace. He plays a lot of minutes. Big, important minutes."
I'd asked Jake Guentzel what it'll take for the Penguins to compensate for the loss of Kris Letang for however long the latter's out following the second stroke of his still-young life, and he came back spot-on with what's above. Ice time. Important roles. Intentional matchups.
But there'd be a brief pause, and he'd add, "And we've all got to defend hard. And it's got to be as five-man units."
He's a smart one. Son of a hockey coach 'n' at.
He's also dead-on in that dual assessment, as became doubly clear through his team's 4-3 edging of the Golden Knights, the current class of the NHL's Western half, on this Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena. Because if any two elements rose above the rest, at least from this press-box perspective, they were:
1. Jeff Petry played a lot of minutes. Big, important minutes. This after being elevated to No. 1 defenseman, forever Letang's role around here, and all that it entails.
2. Oh, my goodness, did the Penguins ever defend hard. As five-man units, no less.
Best performance of the season?
Eh. I'm partial to the one in Winnipeg two weeks ago, the 3-0, all-60-minutes, all quadrants-of-the-rink grounding of the then-first-place Jets. But this one comes with the caveats of the Golden Knights being better than the Jets, of the Penguins themselves being a better version of themselves on the road for whatever reason and, of course, no Letang.
But, as Mike Sullivan would assess afterward, “I thought tonight might've been one of our better games of late. Just with our collective effort and the collective pursuit game. When we play that way, I think we're really hard to play against because we don't give teams any separation. We're playing on top of teams. And when you play on top of them like that, there's not a whole lot of risk associated with it, because you're on the right side of people and you're on the right side of the puck. It sure is hard to play against. And I thought tonight we were pretty good at it."
That's inarguable: The Penguins dominated the Golden Knights in shots by 47-37, in attempted shots by 85-63, in high-danger chances by 19-8, in takeaways by 12-5, and on this sizzling heat map as if someone spilled a vat of french-fry grease on the Vegas slot:
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NATURAL STAT TRICK
Ouch.
And again, not by accident. Sullivan's emphasis in practice the day after the Letang news was, as it's been in the past in other trying times, to stay tighter together. Especially on the forecheck.
"We talk a lot about keeping three close in that offensive zone so that we don't allow our teammates to get outnumbered," he'd explain here. "And a lot of times that third stick that's in the area, if you battle in for a puck or you're pursuing a defenseman, you've got to try to take their close options away. When the effort is collective like that, we're up in fives."
That means ensuring the defensemen join -- or even lead -- the rush. The way Letang often does. Accounting for all five, or 'up in fives.'
"We can also play on top of teams, play on top of people," he continued. "But if you're not, if you're a little bit disconnected and you're not up in fives, you only have two forwards in the battle, or you've only got one guy in the battle, then you allow your linemates to get outnumbered. It's hard to play that type of game."
In the hockey culture, that's an easy sell. All forwards, from peewees to the pros, love the freedom to forecheck. And a defenseman seldom needs to be told twice to accompany that attack. But the challenge is to have everyone applying that systematically and safely enough that odd-man breaks aren't handed away.
This was well executed and, coincidence or not, duly inspired. Letang was in attendance and, even beyond the sentimentality,
As Sidney Crosby worded it, "Obviously, Tanger's in our thoughts. We know it's not an easy situation. So we just tried to pull together and get a win for him. And I'd like to think, overall, we played a pretty solid game."
Which winds me back to Petry, since he was a good bit more than pretty solid.
Logging a team-high, personal-season-high and Letang-like 26:19 of ice time, including extensive usage on all special teams, he'd record an assist, two shots, seven shot attempts, six hits, two takeaways and, to get advanced here, an exemplary Corsi For percentage of 55.81, considering he drew almost all of the assignments against Vegas' Jack Eichel line.
To boot, in the final few minutes with the Penguins straddling survival mode with a one-goal lead, Petry and Marcus Pettersson were paired by Sullivan and Todd Reirden in a clear attempt to go with their best, and they'd rarely leave the rink.
Within those minutes, in my estimation, Petry played the very best hockey of his Pittsburgh tenure. He looked to me like the partner to Shea Weber for that stalwart pairing in Montreal all those years.
And you know, he's going to need to be that guy. Precisely this situation is why he was acquired, providing the Penguins with insurance if their No. 1 defenseman would go down.
Petry and I talked about it afterward:
"Yeah, having him out, that's a big loss," he'd say of Letang. "But I think of myself and how I've got to step up. I think all of us have to step up. And you see Rudy come in and step up ..."
Chad Ruhwedel, back in the lineup on the third pairing.
"He's one of those guys who doesn't look like he ever misses a beat. So, you know, it's always a joint effort."
Sure, but some roles are bigger than others, as I reminded. And unless I was mistaken, Petry did appear on this night to grow in both confidence and stature.
"Yeah," he'd reply. "I think that's something that, when you get in that rhythm, you get major improvement. You make a plan going in, but then, you're out there and you just get rolling, you're getting that chance to shut the brain off and just play, just get rolling."
Neither his role -- nor staying on that roll -- will be optional.
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JUSTIN BERL / GETTY
Jake Guentzel one-times a slap shot past the Golden Knights' Brayden McNabb for a power-play goal.
• Not to be overlooked in the Penguins' improved execution was a whole lot of energy and resiliency.
The Golden Knights, now 17-7-1, had been 13-2 when scoring first. And in this one, they had the game's first two goals, then another lead in the third period when Shea Theodore scored at 1:26, and there couldn't have been many among the crowd of 15,895 feeling all that confident about a positive outcome.
But Jake blasted home a grossly overdue power-play goal at 7:33:
And Kasperi Kapanen, of all people, broke the 3-3 tie by being -- gasp! -- around the net:
Danny Shirey has separate pieces on Jake's goal and Kapanen's goal.
• Scoring at four-on-three was welcome, to put it mildly. But the regular, old five-on-four power play's been reduced to rubble. Can't even gain the zone to set up anymore. Wholly listless. No legs. No purpose behind the passing. And heaven forbid there'd be a shot: Only five total were generated on the six full minutes the Penguins had at five-on-four.
I'd suggest replacing Bryan Rust with Rickard Rakell, but I'd prefer not to insult anyone's intelligence.
• Watching Phil Kessel on the other side still smoothly dissecting penalty-killing boxes from the left half-wall was plenty enough to remind how this power play still lacks that engine. As it has, largely, since his departure.
I don't know what Rakell could do in that regard, but it's beyond absurd he's not even getting a sniff.
• His second-period goal, which tied the score at 2-2, might've been the most academic of his career:
But what I liked a lot more than the finish was the way he fit in with Sid and Jake along the boards for the nearly minute-long shift that led up to it. I've had doubts about his ability to play that way, but I've really got to learn to stop having doubts about anything with this dude.
• Not to be mean, but it can't be a coincidence that Petry's play upgraded once he had Brian Dumoulin removed as his anchor in favor of Pettersson. And it should go without saying that Petry and Pettersson will be the top pairing moving forward, but that's ... oh, we'll see. Old perceptions die hard.
• P.O Joseph was terrific, as Sullivan would acknowledge. So, yeah, maybe he can be elevated, too. And/or Ty Smith. And/or almost anyone.
• Something nice about the third line.
There. I said something nice about the third line. Now, let's see it again.
• Loved Tristan Jarry's 34-save effort. With the key word being that last one.
"Obviously, Vegas pushed there at the end," Sullivan would say, "and I thought Tristan was competing hard. He was fighting hard to find the puck."
Remember, he still needs to be the most prominent piece of all.
• For those who endlessly -- and baselessly -- bleat about this team being old, slow, blah, blah, file away this remark from Vegas' Reilly Smith regarding the Penguins' forecheck: “They were faster than us at the start of the game, and that continued all the way through. They were first to loose pucks. They made our breakouts pretty tough.”
The Golden Knights aren't exactly lacking in speed themselves, for the uninitiated.
There was this, too, from their coach, Bruce Cassidy: “They were harder on pucks than us. They played behind us all night. We didn’t handle their pressure below the goal line, specifically, very well.”
• Great to see Max Talbot, Tyler Kennedy, Ron Hainsey and Jeff Zatkoff all in the house. Family should always be that way, and that goes double for championship family.
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MAX TALBOT TWITTER
L-R: Tyler Kennedy, Sidney Crosby, Max Talbot, Kris Letang after the game Thursday night.
• Greater yet to see the one on the right up there.
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. Had a wonderful walk home thinking about all the angles I'd cover in this one, and I'll probably think of a few more even after powering down. Alas, I'm headed to Atlanta for the weekend and more football, so some sleep won't hurt.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Kasperi Kapanen, Penguins RW
2. Jake Guentzel, Penguins LW
3. Brock McGinn, Penguins LW
THE INJURIES
• Kris Letang, defenseman, is being held out indefinitely after having a stroke Monday. He did, however, hit the ice informally Thursday morning.
• Ryan Poehling, left winger, missed part of the first period after colliding with Josh Archibald in the Vegas slot, but he returned after intermission.
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
Brian Dumoulin-Jeff Petry
Marcus Pettersson-Jan Rutta
P.O Joseph-Chad Ruhwedel
And for Cassidy's Golden Knights:
Chandler Stephenson-Jack Eichel-Mark Stone
Jonathan Marchessault-William Karlsson-Reilly Smith
Paul Cotter-Nicolas Roy-Phil Kessel
William Carrier-Jake Leschyshyn-Keegan Kolesar
Brayden McNabb-Shea Theodore
Nicolas Hague-Alec Martinez
Ben Hutton-Zach Whitecloud
THE SCHEDULE
There'd been a practice on the docket for Friday, but Sullivan canceled it after this game. Next up are the Blues, Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, 7:08 p.m. faceoff. Danny and Taylor Haase will double-cover that one.
THE CONTENT
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