Kovacevic: One-and-done? Well, no, but that's an early problem to solve

Can't believe the blimp hung around an extra couple days for this.

Sorry, wait, that's Blimp with a capital B. As in the one, the only Goodyear Blimp. 

Yeah, it was here over the weekend for CBS' national broadcast of Steelers vs. Ravens, and it was still in our skies high above our Golden Triangle on this Tuesday night for ESPN's national broadcast of Penguins vs. Blackhawks, pumping out pictures over PPG Paints Arena for TV breaks, plus this singular gem for social media:

Damn, we're good, huh?

The event itself was supposed to be good, too. Maybe great. 

The franchise's 56th season opener began with a celebration of the Core -- Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, of course -- becoming the most tenured trio of teammates in the history of North American professional sports, surpassing the Yankees' Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada by embarking on their 18th season together. And the capacity crowd of 18,411 raised the roof once the Core and all the rest had been introduced into a circle formation at center ice:

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The Penguins stand in a circle at center ice after pregame introductions.

Spectacular achievement. We might never see anything like it again, here or anywhere else. 

This evening also marked the NHL debut of the Blackhawks' wunderkind Connor Bedard, willfully aligned against Crosby by the powers-that-be for added drama:

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Kelly Sutherland drops the puck between Sidney Crosby and the Blackhawks' Connor Bedard to open the game.

And finally, lest anyone forget a certain summer-long frenzy-turned-fairy-tale, it marked the Pittsburgh debut of Erik Karlsson, a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer in his own right:

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

Erik Karlsson beats the Blackhawks' Cole Guttman to a puck for a slap shot.

All of which went ... pffffffffffffffft ... by the time the Blackhawks, seemingly reminding everyone about the previous game played here back on April 11, if darkest-recess memory serves, proceeded to blow up a third-period lead in this one and prevail, 4-2:

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

The Blackhawks' Corey Perry and Jason Dickinson celebrate the latter's winning goal in the third period.

Uh-huh. That happened. Again. As if not a damned thing had changed since then. As if the entire front office and, in turn, nearly half of the roster had been transfused to no effect. As if this were all playing out in this particular setting to further cement that these Penguins are that much closer to setting both skates into the figurative grave.

Except that ... um, no. To all of that.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s Game 1," Matt Nieto, one of a remarkable 10 newcomers on the 22-man roster, was telling me after this. After which we'd make eye contact, my eyebrows raised, and he laughed. "No, it really is. It's Game 1. We’re not panicking in here. We know that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. And we’ve got a determined group in here. I have no doubt that we’ll fix things.”

Mike Sullivan spoke something similar to the subject of the Chicago sequel.

“Well, I think this is a new year," he'd say. "It's a new team. It’s a whole new group of players. I’d like to believe we’re a better team than what we showed tonight. I just thought it was a loose game. It was a high-event game on both sides. That’s not the type of game that's conducive to winning. We certainly don't stack the deck in our favor. So we’ve got to play more responsible.”

He's right. They're both right. They will fix this. And I'm hardly adopting some hopeful stance in saying so. Because I've seen for several weeks now that they're deeper than the 2022-23 team, they're smarter than that team, they're more skilled and -- wait for it -- they're faster.

No, really. The lazy narrative that tends to follow an outcome like this, and it applies doubly when the opponent's got an 18-year-old babyface squirting excellence all over the rink, is to call the Penguins old and slow.

Well, they're a year older than last season, as are we all. And that matters where the Core's concerned. We've no way of knowing if either Sid or Geno can partake in all 82 again, never mind producing at a point-a-game pace. It feels like it's asking a lot.

But, as I've been writing for weeks now, don't confuse that with getting slower. Because that's demonstrably, provably incorrect. Man for man, up and down the depth chart, Jansen Harkins for Brock McGinn, Ryan Graves for Brian Dumoulin and so on, they're faster. They really are. And for anyone who didn't pick up on that in this opener, even though it was evident, they'll do so soon enough.

That was certainly their collective view.

“It’s Game 1. You’ve got to learn,” Sid would say. “It’s better when you can learn when you’ve won, obviously, but it’s just the timing, checking close, making sure we don’t give them Grade-A opportunities. As a whole, you look at the chances we got, pretty sure they don’t want to give up the chances we had, either. So, it’s just who can get to their game a little bit better and, obviously, they were able to get a couple in the third.”

Yep. Shots were 40-36 for the Penguins, shot attempts were 72-70 for the Blackhawks, and that looseness that Sullivan cited segued right into Chicago scoring these two goals before an empty-netter:

Almost everyone's culpable on Cole Guttman's equalizer, though I'll call special attention to Harkins and P.O Joseph for utterly failing to seal off the sequence along the right wall.

On the winner ...

... culpability might seem inapplicable given the odd bounce that giftwrapped the puck for Jason Dickinson between the hashes, but it begins with brutality in the far zone. Watch Bryan Rust try to Alexei Kovalev his way into the Chicago zone, then watch the rejection.

That's where my mind wound up after this, to be honest: For a team that feeds on the forecheck and puck possession the way Sullivan and the Penguins forever have, and facing an opponent that had three NHL rookie defensemen suited up ... man, there were too many one-and-done zone entries to count, and that didn't allow for any kind of consistent, wear-'em-down pressure.

Excruciating cases in point:

See, speed isn't the issue up there. Rickard Rakell gets to the puck first, adds a bonus thump, and the puck squirts right out to Reilly Smith. That's a winning forecheck ... but a losing possession, because Smith tries to force a pass to Geno through three white sweaters.

One and done.

Karlsson pushes this puck behind the net. It's a staple of his. Lars Eller, who's as new to this team as Karlsson, reacts late, and the puck keeps rolling around to the far corner. Drew O'Connor and Noel Acciari, both new to Karlsson, are almost flat-footed in hovering near him at the right point for some reason. A decade-plus of Karlsson's history makes clear that he wants his wingers heading to the net. He'll find a way to get it there. But when no one's there, he'll just execute the push that he did.

One and done.

And this next one has a half-dozen more examples, all in succession:

Good Lord.

Sullivan fairly emphasized the defensive gaps afterward, and I respect that. The Penguins were almost as bad at giving the Blackhawks super-sized green lights through the neutral zone as they were in giving up the glaring space allotted on two of their first three goals. I'm sure both elements will eat up big chunks of the next practice.

"We've got to be a whole lot better as far as being stingy in protecting the scoring area, defending the scoring area," Sullivan would say. "We give up that goal in the third period right from the slot, uncontested. We've got to be a lot stingier than that.”

But to me, sorry, this isn't about to blossom into some Jennings Trophy operation. The roster remains skewed to offense. So does the system. And as such, the like-it-or-not, not-gonna-change fact in this equation is that the proverbial best defense will be to push that much harder for possession in the attacking zone. To fight for the puck and to focus just as hard on keeping it. To not throw it away. To move into predictable spots to present better positions for puck support.

I brought this up with Nieto.

“We came up with some forechecks, but I think it’s after the forechecks that we need to improve," he'd reply. "It's just spending more quality zone time in their end and just constant sustained pressure. I don’t think we had enough of the second and third chances tonight, either.”

Almost forgot about that. Only five of their 40 shots on Mrazek came off rebounds. Screens were sparse, too. He saw everything.

I brought up the one-and-dones with Sullivan, as well.

“Yeah, there were," he'd reply. "I didn't think we control territory as well as we're capable. I don't think we were stiff enough on the puck in the offensive zone. We've got to get our noses over it. We've got to hang onto it more. We have to have the ability to use the depth of the zone, width of the zone to get the puck out of the traffic areas. So, there were a number of things."

After a brief pause, he'd add, "We've got a ways to go here. We've got a ways to go. So there were a lot of good things, but certainly there's a lot of areas where we’ve got to be a whole lot better.”

Myself, I saw only three good things:

• Forty shots is a healthy output, and the same goes for those 72 shot attempts, the 12 high-danger chances and two clean breakaways.

• Quality goals from Rust and the captain:

• Tristan Jarry stopped 32 of 35 shots, including 13 on high-danger chances. He was terrific, I thought. Once more with gusto, nothing matters more.

I also liked that it was, for real, Game 1. That 2-82 stretch, even if lacking this stage, leaves lots of time for the lots of improvement needed. Because all these flaws are fixable, none fatal.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Jason Dickinson, Blackhawks C
2. Petr Mrazek, Blackhawks G
3. Bryan Rust, Penguins RW

THE INJURIES

• Left winger Jake Guentzel (ankle surgery) rehabilitated in time to open the season.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith-Evgeni Malkin-Rickard Rakell
Drew O'Connor-Lars Eller-Jansen Harkins
Matt Nieto-Noel Acciari-Jeff Carter

Ryan Graves-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-Erik Karlsson
P.O Joseph-Chad Ruhwedel

And for Luke Richardson's Blackhawks:

Taylor Hall-Connor Bedard-Ryan Donato
Tyler Johnson-Lukas Reichel-Taylor Raddysh
Boris Katchouk-Cole Guttman-Andreas Athanasiou
Corey Perry-Jason Dickinson-Nick Foligno

Alex Vlasic-Seth Jones
Kevin Korchinski-Connor Murphy
Jarred Tinordi-Wyatt Kaiser

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins are off Wednesday, they'll practice Thursday, 11 a.m., at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry, then they'll travel to D.C. for the Friday night game with the Capitals.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

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