Kovacevic: One more smart decision to make

Mike Johnston isn't dumb.

Oh, he'll do occasionally dumb things, as do we all. But he's also demonstrated in his still-short tenure with the Penguins that he won't stay stupidly stubborn.

Take a look for yourself ...



That's Daniel Sprong blistering home his first NHL goal, one which broke the backs of the Senators in the second period of what wound up a 2-0 woefully overdue win Thursday night at Consol Energy Center.

A beauty, too, huh?

If you were among the 18,479 that marked the 379th consecutive sellout crowd, you probably won't forget it anytime soon.

Here's betting the guy behind the bench won't, either.

"Daniel looked strong," Johnston was saying afterward. "Very strong."



Funny how that works.

So Sprong gets bumped from the fourth line to the third, sees a season-high 13:07 of ice time, registers a season-high four shots ... and scores.

"Oh, man, that felt so good," Sprong said. "That feeling ... just before I jumped into the glass, I didn't really even know what to do."

Yeah, and he helped the Penguins win. Imagine that.

So the forward lines, facing another tired opponent -- Ottawa played the previous night while the Penguins were off, just like Arizona last week -- finally were configured so that most of the talent was on the first two lines ... and David Perron registers a game-high seven shots while new linemate Evgeni Malkin scores for the first time in 19 games:



"It was important for us to come right at them with our best," Perron said. "We all know it's tough to play back-to-back in this league. We didn't want them to get any energy."

Yeah, and they used their sharpest shovel for the burial. Unlike with the Coyotes.

So the power play, embarrassingly ineffective through three losses, finally loads up with superstars at nearly every station ... and graded well even while going 0 for 3.

"We had so many chances, good chances," Malkin said. "The goals will come, for sure, if we keep moving the puck, shooting the puck like that. So many great players."

Yeah, all their best. Like every other power-play philosophy in hockey history.

So Rob Scuderi, more of an anvil than an anchor at this post-mortem point in his career, finally was scratched in favor of much more mobile Adam Clendening ... and the Penguins for the first time looked like a real fit for Johnston's system in that all concerned -- Kris Letang, Olli Maatta, Ben Lovejoy, Ian Cole and Brian Dumoulin -- seemed to rise up in unison, especially between the blue lines in supporting the rush.

"We're a talented team, and we talked this morning about taking that talent and making something out of it," Lovejoy said. "And I think the key for us is the neutral zone."

Yeah, defensive mobility is only the foundation for the coach's own Xs and Os.

So hey, anyway, there it was. Took a week longer than anyone would have liked, but Johnston finally figured out some stuff, and the Penguins are 1-3 heading into a Saturday night visit from the sorry Maple Leafs.

All very welcome. All very much predictable, as I wrote last week from the desert.

But the coach's most compelling decision of the early going -- and I wholly believe it will be on Johnston, based on multiple conversations after the game -- will be how to handle the wunderkind Sprong, who gets only nine NHL games before he either must stay in the league all season or be returned to his junior team in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

From this perspective, that's no decision at all: Sprong must stay.

I could rehash all his hockey virtues here, or his remarkable maturity for age 18, or everything else we've all been glowing about since he blew away the field this summer at the NHL prospects tournament in London, Ontario.

The kid is all that.

The kid is real.

And development be damned, the kid can make an impact right now.

The latter is the point that should be stressed above all. The Penguins aren't exactly young, not in age, speed or endurance, even if Scuderi is scratched, even if Chris Kunitz gets demoted for Sprong -- which should already have happened -- and even if they lost other older players since last season. Take one glimpse at the teams that have competed for the Stanley Cup in recent seasons, including the Blackhawks and Lightning in the final last season, and you'll find relative children up and down the roster.

One thing hasn't changed about hockey since its dog-sled days: It's all about the legs.

Sprong has those legs. You saw them Thursday. And more important, you'll see that same burst in March, April, even May.

I'll word this more strongly, if only for emphasis: Keeping Sprong is an absolute must, as it would be for any team that fancies itself a legitimate championship contender.

I think the Penguins will do that. But I can't be sure.

It won't be about the money or Sprong's contract status now or four years from now. It's never been about the money under Ron Burkle and Mario Lemieux, and team president David Morehouse assured me after this game it won't be with Sprong. The topic has never even been broached, Morehouse said, whether about Sprong or any young player.

But it also won't be about the current team, as I've been told by everyone from Jim Rutherford on down for weeks now. To a man, the word from hockey ops is that nothing will trump Sprong's long-term development. As the GM explained to me, "We're very fortunate to have gotten a player like this in the draft, and we want to do right by him and the organization for years to come."

That's admirable. And it probably should be appreciated in the context of Ray Shero having utterly devastated the system of forwards.

But sorry, I'm not in line with not prioritizing the present.

I see Sidney Crosby still struggling to find his elite footing. I see Crosby and Phil Kessel on a first line that deserves so much more than a 35-year-old Kunitz. I see Malkin and Patric Hornqvist, but I still wonder about Perron being the quintessential ex-Oiler. I see a defense corps that, once appearing to be loaded with prospects as trade chips, now barely getting by, thanks to Derrick Pouliot's camp flop.

I see a team that can be very good but also one that could be very easily derailed.

And if I'm plotting going forward, I'd always rather tilt toward the positive outcome, which in this case is a team that could support Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury with both skill and freshness.

That's Sprong.

Again, this will be Johnston's call. And he'd be wise to make the right one.

After this game, he chose his words carefully when asked about Sprong's showing: "Well, Sprong, as I've said before, I really think he's going to be a good player for this organization. But I've dealt with junior players before, and I still consider him a junior player."

Wait, what?

"Those players have to learn habits away from the puck and responsibilities, so the coach trusts them," Johnston said. "I've felt he's been coming along in that area, so I felt he deserved to bump up the depth chart a little bit tonight. And he responded."

Well, sure. He scored.

It was that he scored, right?

"He responded with a good working game. He had shots. He had the one goal. I like what I see of him. I still want to see better habits all over the ice. But it's going to come with a young guy."

Exactly. It's teaching defense to a scoring winger. It's always the last lesson learned, but it's the last lesson for a reason. Because the rest is built on innate talent.

Johnston, maybe inadvertently, makes a powerful case for keeping Sprong right there. Because if the only hangup anyone with the Penguins has about the young man is whether or not he'll chip the puck over the blue line or pick up a body on the backcheck, then he's absolutely, unequivocally ready to spend a full season in the NHL.

Generally speaking, when hockey people are worried about a prospect's ability to handle the top level, they're looking at fragility, be that psychological or related to one's physique, whether he still needs to grow or blossom in some way.

Sprong appears to have zero issues with the former, and I can attest to that already, having witnessed how he's cooled since some early nerves in Dallas and Phoenix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvhWXkO-SlI

He might not have zero issues related to hockey, but he's got zero that matter toward development. If he isn't being diligent defensively now, he'll sit. And it's possible, we should probably consider, that Johnston is simply using this nine-game trial to reinforce that message now so he won't have to deal with it later.

And by later, I mean April and May. Right here in Pittsburgh.