Kovacevic: Call the Penguins old, but don't call them slow

CRANBERRY, Pa. -- There are dozens of ways to define skating excellence at the NHL level, from lateral movement to backward agility to short bursts to the simplicity of straightaway speed.

Drew O'Connor's got another way.

"Get there," he was telling me Tuesday after the Penguins' practice at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. "Just get there."

Yeah that.

See, the kid I've been kiddingly calling the 'Human Forecheck' ever since his arrival, unsurprisingly, gets that speed comes with a general purpose in hockey and a highly specific purpose within the Mike Sullivan system, and that's to be the first to the puck on the forecheck. As in, get there.

And from there, as O'Connor'd add, "Get there, get the puck, then make something happen. Don't just make it someone else's problem. Do something good."

My friends, the list is long of everything I hated that Ron Hextall and Brian Burke did to this roster in their three-year tenure of trauma. But I hated nothing more -- not even the Jeff Carter extension that's still laughing at us -- the way I hated the complete lack of a connection with their own head coach's system. And that was topped by either ambivalence or a lack of awareness of what was needed among the bottom-six forwards.

What Sullivan requires are speed, smarts, more speed, defensive acumen, still more speed, sandpaper and, by God, let's have even more speed. And what Sullivan got from Hextall/Burke was a boatload of Brock McGinn. They didn't "get there" on the forecheck, they didn't win pucks, they didn't do anything meaningful with the pucks when they did, they didn't get in anyone's faces, and they were, for the most part, painfully slow. Even uninspired.

It was sickening to watch. Really was. But doubly so in the context of the top-six types more than doing their own jobs and, in turn, seeing a full season of point-a-game production from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin flushed away.

Look, I'm not about to pretend that Kyle Dubas' replacements will be the second coming of HBK. The combo of Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Phil Kessel made for a once-in-a-generation third line, and it'll be a long while till we see something like that again.

But I'll say these two things with confidence about the new look:

1. They really are new. Only O'Connor and Carter are holdovers, and here's hoping without belaboring it that Carter's playing time aligns with his performance, unlike last season. Otherwise, Lars Eller, Matt Nieto, Noel Acciari, Vinnie Hinostroza and now Jansen Harkins are outside acquisitions by Dubas, each with the management-stated aim of adding more and more of the aforementioned vital traits.

2. They "get there." All of them.

Take it from Reilly Smith, maybe the Penguins' most underappreciated new acquisition, fresh off a Stanley Cup championship in Las Vegas. His Golden Knights forced the issue over all 200x85, not just on the forecheck, and they did so those same traits, albeit in far greater abundance than what was in Pittsburgh this past winter.

Similarities to the approach here?

"For sure," Smith told me after practice. "We want the puck here at all times, and that's how it was in Vegas. And then once we got it, we'd do whatever had to be done to keep it. We never just threw it around."

And that capability's here?

"Oh, yeah, of course. We can move."

Sullivan himself confirmed that, not hesitating in the slightest when I asked if this team's faster, overall, than last season's.

“I think so, and in a lot of different ways," he answered. "I think we have a hockey IQ where we can think the game faster. That gives us the ability to move the puck and change the point of attack. Nothing moves faster than the puck, and our ability to think the game a little bit faster and execute things like that give us the ability to play a quicker game. I think we’ve added some foot speed, as well."

Smith makes for a fine example. He'll be on Malkin's left wing, so he's not bottom-six, but his propensity for scoring off the rush was a significant component to the Golden Knights' attack, including on specialty situations:

Even setting aside, the chef's kiss finish on that overtime gem this past season in Toronto, check out the burst of speed following the turnover. Smith can move in any setting, but hockey people will always save a spare gush for anyone who can turn it on when most needed.

"So," Sullivan continued, "I think it’s a combination of the physical foot speed, but probably the biggest aspect is just some of the hockey IQ that we’ve added to the group. Players like Reilly Smith, for example, who thinks the game so well, or Erik Karlsson on the back end. Lars Eller, right? These guys, they’re cerebral players. They see it and think it pretty well, and that in and of itself, I think, gives us the opportunity to establish the game that we’re trying to play.”

He's right about all of that, also right to include Eller. He's the only one in the bottom-six who won't qualify for burner status, but his authoritative, stand-up stride, coupled with confident possession and long being one of the NHL's savviest centers, makes him Exhibit A to have the puck do the skating for him.

This is from a week ago, dangling the Sabres on puppet strings before setting up O'Connor's redirect:

Not going to lie here: I'm an Eller guy, and I've been that way since his arrival from Denmark. Always have a soft spot for the smarter ones. And although he's 34 and won't fly around as he did in his Washington days, he might be as essential as any new acquisition this side of Karlsson, if only for the defensive prowess.

"I know why I'm here," as he'd word it for me.

Still, he, too, gets why none of this can work unless the Sullivan system's fueled up properly.

Will that be the case?

“It should be," came the measured reply. "I think that’s always been the Penguins’ identity as long as I’ve played them. They are very good when they move the puck north, D-to-forward, quickly after a turnover, in the transition. It catches the other teams a little bit on their heels and you can create an odd-man rush. And for the guy who’s getting the puck, the other two or three guys already know. So they’re already going toward that with speed. And that’s playing fast."

He'd use that term a lot in our talk, just as Sullivan did. Others did here, as well.

"Playing fast is when you know before other guys know what’s going to happen," Eller continued. "I think that's one of the keys to us being successful. That’s what we have to get to. If we can do those things, and then add skill on top of that … Playing fast is skating fast, but it’s also thinking fast. To be able to think fast, you have to somewhat anticipate what the other guys are doing out there because, you know, one guy can be fast and work hard by himself, but it’s not going to be successful if the other four are not in sync.”

That's what I'm seeing, the start of that sync. And it's fun. It's encouraging. We're talking about practices and preseason exhibitions, so it's hardly definitive, but it's progress in pieces.

Bottom line, though: Still gotta "get there." Speed doesn't go into a slump, as the common saying goes across all sports, and there's only so much creativity and chemistry can do to replicate if it isn't there innately. And the two wingers most assured of having prominent roles on the third or fourth lines, Nieto and Acciari, come with very real wheels:

Nieto skates the length of the rink, and Acciari shows one of those bursts I cited, but it's easy to see both are light on their blades.

They get it, too:

“I think we play a system that kind of relies on that," Nieto told me. "I think we’re aggressive all over the ice. We’re pushing the pace whenever we have the puck. It’s a hard system to play against when you’re doing it right. It doesn’t allow teams to get set up in their defensive coverage. It’s a fun system to play, as well.”

Acciari, who'll be more noticeable through being a pain in opponents' rear end -- also missing from the previous crew, by the way -- mentioned the forecheck first to me.

“For me, I like being first on the puck, whether it’s throwing a hit or trying to loosen the puck," he'd say. "I think that fits my game well. I’m a north-south kind of player. I like finishing checks, especially if I get first in on the forecheck. Make the D maybe a little hesitant to go for that puck first and give my linemates a little better opportunity to come up with the puck or if I can bump it to them. I like that way, that style."

I could also throw in Harkins, the waiver claim this week from Winnipeg:

That's serious mobility for a 6-2 frame, on top of the hands he's shown to be a prolific producer in the AHL.

I asked after his first practice with the Penguins what he could bring here:

“I think I can bring a lot of different stuff," he'd reply: "Speed and some tenacity. I think just being a good, solid 200-foot player, just trying to get up and down the ice. I really don’t know too much about the team yet.”

You already know enough, young man.

And one more from the Human Forecheck. Huge frame, fine hands ... but there's no way to get through a feature on skating without illustrating the power version:

Shades of a young Kevin Stevens, huh?

All of that's available to Sullivan now. It might be enough. It might not. I'm not making any predictions about anything related to this franchise until I'm sold anew on Tristan Jarry.

But I'll put forth this much in the moment: Go right ahead and call them old. Don't dare call them slow. Not anymore.