WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Maybe nothing will save the Penguins' offense.
Or for that matter, their steadily sinking season.
But if one promising pattern emerged from the two regulation losses they took on this trip through Minnesota and Manitoba -- and heck, maybe even throughout this broader 10-game streak of scoring three or fewer goals in each -- it's that the team's becoming more in tune with Erik Karlsson and how he's forever crafted offense at an elite level.
Which is to say this ...
The captain has been getting the job done against Minnesota 💪
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 10, 2024
Crosby now has 16 points (7G-9A) in his last eight games against the Wild. pic.twitter.com/yOYuSJqfPB
... and this:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 11, 2024
Those, of course, were the Sidney Crosby goal in St. Paul and the Bryan Rust goal here, both spoonfed by Karlsson, both every bit as willful as they appear. The blade's down to present the target, and Karlsson plants it there with deadly precision.
"He's so dangerous with it," Rust was telling me here. "You have to be somewhere where he can find you."
There's more to it. Sid's redirects are, like the man himself, the stuff of legend. But look at that Rust goal again, count all the Winnipeg blue between him and Connor Hellebuyck, consider all the distance between him and the crease, then realize that he still approached that side of the rink with the same objective, only to graze the puck on his backhand just right.
Remember way back in training camp when I wrote that the Penguins would need to adjust to Karlsson far more than the reverse?
Yeah, that's this.
It's what he's been doing throughout his illustrious career, to the extreme that, in winning the Norris Trophy with the Sharks last season, he put up 101 points on a rock-bottom roster that had no one else over 67. And there were no favorites. He'd plant one for Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture as easily as he'd convert with fourth-line roster filler.
With the Penguins, being blunt, all of this has happened too slowly. Almost none of it in the opening month, a little more after that, and only of late has it become a thing. But it has, in fact, become a thing: Karlsson's got 15 points in the past 16 games, with at least one point in 14 of those, at least one assist in 13 of those. And nine of those were primary assists. That's insane. That's his San Jose pace.
What's more, those two goals up there represent a fraction of the times it's been tried. By my own count, in the loss to the Jets, he attempted his trademark play no fewer than seven times, once to a fault when he coasted into the Winnipeg slot but still tried to feed a teammate.
They're getting it.
"I hope we can keep doing it," was all Karlsson would tell me on this topic, but suffice it to say he's been eager to push this for months.
Hey, I'm not about to be Mr. Sunshine when it comes to this team's trajectory, but it's something.
• A good minute I had with Karlsson here:
“Offense is all about taking what is given to you sometimes and making the right read at the same time," he'd say. "Also finding ways to create situations for yourself when you have a decision to make. I think we do that fairly well and we create chances. We just have to find a way to sustain it a little bit more and create even a few more chances. The more of those we have, the higher your odds are that you’re going to score more goals.”
That's right. Fifth in the NHL in shots. Fifth in high-danger chances. Bottom-five in virtually every other offensive category.
Bizarre. Never covered a season like it.
• I can't get enough of Jesse Puljujarvi's early work on his way back from an unlikely recover from double-hip resurfacing surgery. He's been a bulldog and a half, with or without production to date, and additionally flashing the skill that made him a No. 4 overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. I'm not sure why Mike Sullivan didn't send him over the boards for the final 10 minutes here the other night -- and I had other questions that were a priority in a brief session -- but here's hoping everyone on the inside's seeing this, as well.
• Evgeni Malkin's just ... wow right now. And not the good wow, either, with two goals over the past 15 games. Until he looks in the mirror and fully grasps it's not 2014 anymore, and he keeps flying forward into masses of opposing sweaters, that won't change. He'll either figure out the Sergei Fedorov/Pavel Datsyuk of the latter stage of his career, or it'll end a lot sooner than anyone wants.
• It's not just that the Penguins are 12th in the Eastern Conference, or that they're seven points out of the final wild card spot. It's that they’re nine points behind John Tortorella's Flyers, of whom next to nothing was expected even in Philadelphia. And this with Carter Hart out for the foreseeable future due to the pending Hockey Canada trials in London, Ontario. That's not a great look for anyone on the correct edge of our commonwealth.
• The Pirates' signing of Yasmani Grandal yesterday -- one year, $2.5 million at age 35 -- doesn't excite me, but it's a little more necessary than management might want to admit. They won't trust Henry Davis to catch until they'd see a full summer of it, and Jason Delay's fresh off one of the most statistically lucky hitting seasons in baseball history. Someone's got to catch. Someone's got to hit.
• Next time I mention that your Pittsburgh Baseball Club pays zero attention to anything on the planet outside 115 Federal Street, have it filed away that the Grandal signing broke during the first half of the Super Bowl. This occurs with them regularly, including on holidays. Not a criticism, mind you, just an observation for all those who get excessively conspiratorial about this group.
• Mason Rudolph's made nothing remotely resembling a decision on his future with the Steelers. Lots of outside noise on that front over the weekend, none of it justified.
• I'd have no issue with Ryan Tannehill being brought aboard even if Rudolph and Kenny Pickett are both in the fold. Arthur Smith deserves to have at least one quarterback in camp as a parachute type, in addition to potentially helping instill his offense within the quarterback room. Makes a ton of sense, actually.
• Patrick Mahomes was going to win that game. He just was. If the 49ers were to let him onto the field once overtime hit, he was going to win Super Bowl LVIII, and he sure did:
13 plays. 75 yards. 1 Super Bowl victory.
— NFL (@NFL) February 12, 2024
The drive that gave the @Chiefs back-to-back Lombardis. 🏆 pic.twitter.com/rqmkgJPrrk
Wow. All I got. Just wow.
OK, so it's not all I got: Wouldn't have minded seeing Kyle Shanahan recognize that Christian McCaffrey looked poised to win it for the 49ers pretty much all by himself. When that happens, as was the case with Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes once in a while, there's no need to overthink things. Let the driver do the driving.
• The Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift thing was exceedingly cool from both perspectives, but mostly from the one where, very clearly, neither gave a whoop about any outside noise. Wonderful slice of Americana that played out in full view of everyone.
• I've always loved how much Winnipeg loves the NFL. Their own Blue Bombers have been the CFL's powerhouse in recent years, but there wasn't a restaurant or bar anywhere here last night that wasn't tuned in to Las Vegas.
• Rough ending to an otherwise wonderful trip Dali and I made up here, in that we had our flight home canceled, then rerouted the following morning all the way down through Atlanta. Perils of traveling to places with limited planes flying in and out. But no complaints, I swear. Flying home today, and this was awesome.
• This morning's podcasts, for all the audiophiles:
