"I don't care if my arm's falling off, I've gotta get that puck out of the zone and down the ice."
Uh, baloney.
But hey, let's do right by Bryan Rust and lay out the full sequence that decided the Penguins' 2-1 loss to the Senators on this Monday night at PPG Paints Arena, because he's already had a rough-enough go of late in not scoring over nine games.
Take an elongated look at Drake Batherson's winner with 2:09 left, on an Ottawa power play:
Tim Stutzle passes cross-point to Jake Sanderson, who lets one rip ... mercilessly into Rust's right arm. And when Rust tries, despite being in obvious and significant pain, to backhand the puck high and out of the zone, Sanderson gloves it for the keep, then shoves it low to Brady Tkachuk, who then whirls it toward Batherson for the jam home.
The Ottawa perspective, courtesy of Sanderson: "We just stick with it, got it done in the end."
The Pittsburgh perspective, courtesy of, um, me: The dude who's lucky his arm didn't fall off wasn't at fault. Rather, the one who did all the puck-watching was.
Hate to keep picking on Brian Dumoulin, but as long as Mike Sullivan's comfortable suggesting, as he did to me over the weekend in New York, that the reporting on Dumoulin and/or Jeff Carter is only "scratching the surface" compared to some apparently more benign reality that no one outside 1001 Fifth Avenue can access, I'll feel equally comfortable scratching toward some higher standard.
Here's a second angle:
Follow nothing other than No. 8. It shouldn't be hard. Because he's frozen in following all the passes. It's not just that his head isn't on the proverbial swivel. It's that it's focused -- no, fixated -- on everything except his critical responsibilities down low. And my goodness, this even applies once the puck gets to Tkachuk, even though Batherson's all but advertising that he's the trigger man and, for what it's worth, even though he's now got five goals, six assists in seven career games against the Penguins.
Tristan Jarry never had a prayer, but I checked what he'd seen just to be sure:
"It hit both posts, hit the back of my skate and went in," he'd explain, tellingly fast-forwarding past any explanation regarding the initial shot. "It's unfortunate, but I didn't want to move just in case it bounces back."
Again, not a prayer.
I'm eager for fresh material, too, Coach.
