Kovacevic: All eyes affixed to Crosby now

Brief and to the Point ...

• Sidney Crosby was among the last of the Penguins lagging on the ice in Cranberry after Monday's hour-plus workout, and this after Mike Johnston put the group through Herb Brooks-esque sprints to loosen those legs after all that cross-Canada flying.

Say what you will of the captain's performance to date -- 10 scoreless outputs in 14 team games, just two goals and five assists total -- but you can't fault the effort.

And now, officially, you can't fault linemates anymore, either.

Johnston's latest reshuffling Monday, this coming at a pace that would make a Vegas dealer blush, had Crosby between longtime fave Pascal Dupuis and newly promoted Beau Bennett. There are no excuses to be had there. Both can keep up, Dupuis can do the dirty work, Bennett can dangle, and Crosby ... he just needs to start producing.

To his credit, shortly after coming off the ice, that seemed to be his thought, too.

"Lines change," he said, "but you've got still got to score goals."



It's no longer any more complex than that. I've had major issues with many of Johnston's decisions to date. And even after he's addressed some of those, I still have doubts. But other players are starting to score under the same coach, notably fellow superstars Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, and Crosby isn't. Other players are also generating more chances, winning more faceoffs, defending better, providing more energy ... and a whole lot more.

The criticism and concerns regarding the coach remain valid until the entire team begins producing to its capability. But a truly fair assessment can only be achieved if the glaring outlier isn't the player that some still see as the best in the world.

• Speaking of criticism and the coach: The last two players off the ice Monday were the same as ever, Kris Letang and Olli Maatta, both clearly preparing for the day when, if common sense prevails, they'll be paired up.

That doesn't mean that players should get to pick their partners or linemates. But when the logic involved is so overwhelming and when they were billed all summer as the top pairing and when they prepared as such and when they continue to prepare as such and when Letang is minus-10 in the opening month ... come on already.

• The Penguins do, in fact, have a healthy young defenseman who's aggressive on the puck, active in the offensive zone, smart for all 200 feet, and all this despite considerable doubts about how long it might take to prove himself.

It just wasn't Derrick Pouliot.

It was Brian Dumoulin.

"Honestly, I'm just feeling a little better, a little more confident every game," the kid was telling me after practice. "I'm not trying to take too many chances, but you've still got to play with that idea that you're the one on the attack. I think that's really important for all of us."

• Is there any act more tired than Gary Bettman playing coy about whether the NHL will participate in future Olympics?

There's no question the league will go. There never is. And it amazes me how many in the old-guard Canadian media fall for it every four years. They even fell for it when the subject was Sochi, despite being fully aware of the backlash it would have brought Bettman from Alexander Ovechkin and other NHL stars.

Well, the IIHF is playing it smart this time and calling a double-bluff on Bettman: The sport's international governing body has told the commissioner it wants an answer not only for 2018 and South Korea but also 2022 when the Games return to Beijing. That's because all concerned know the NHL can't pass up a chance at the massive merchandising revenue available by growing even a little in the world's most populous nation.

And by that, I mean the nation of China, as opposed to the manufactured "nations" of "Team YoungStars-istan" and "Team Rest of Europe" in Bettman's brazenly contrived World Cup of Hockey.

• The Steelers and Bills will hold the AFC's two wild cards when it's done, though neither will get there without a serious stumble or two. And the Steelers will, of course, line up with the Bengals in the initial round, where things tend not to go well for Marvin Lewis.

Yes, I'm copying and pasting this, too.

• Is it fairer to praise Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert for having brought back the snarl to the Steelers' secondary or to rip them for having allowed it to disappear for three years?

Filling the glass to half-full, I'll go with the former: Once the NFL outlawed pretty much everything Ryan Clark was capable of doing, a transition to a hard-hitting secondary wasn't going to be smooth. Not with Troy Polamalu hanging on a year too long. Not with Cortez Allen imploding psychologically. Not with Ike Taylor never having been that player, yet keeping his job out of at least some necessity. And not, lest we forget, with Mike Mitchell playing through what now very clearly was a legit injury.

But now that all of the above except Mitchell are gone, and now that Mitchell is healthy, that all changed violently, if you will.

"Mike's the man, the one we follow," Antwon Blake was telling me Sunday. "And it isn't just about the hitting. That's not what we talk about. We talk about studying the opponent, learning their tendencies, keeping the ball in front of us, tackling."

Some of that other stuff needs work, but the hitting has been a sight.

• Outspoken as Mitchell has become, he'll never publicly discuss what impact an aging, mostly lost Polamalu had on his play last season. Nor should he, even if it's accurate.

• Wait, seriously, some people are accusing Aldon Smith of intentionally hurting Ben Roethlisberger and likening it to a later play in which Ryan Shazier was flagged for projecting himself low into Derek Carr?

Oh, my ...



The only crime committed on this play was Alejandro Villanueva, who otherwise had a good showing, getting shoved backward for nearly 10 yards.

• Madness, thy name is Lawrence Timmons chasing a wide receiver downfield, then everyone glaring at each other after the touchdown and wondering who messed up.

• Could Tomlin really render Jesse James inactive after how the rookie tight end out of Glassport and Penn State stood tall in his NFL debut?

I'm not talking about James' touchdown, either. I'm talking about Todd Haley having the confidence in James to swing him very wide on blocking schemes, a luxury he can't afford when it's less mobile Matt Spaeth in there. James was moving with as much speed and strength as I've seen at the position in Pittsburgh since a much younger Heath Miller.

• Just a reminder that no one outside Cleveland can ever complain about their quarterback situation, courtesy of the infamous storefront mannequin in that city's downtown: