Kovacevic: Hats off to Crosby

No human can make contact with Sidney Crosby's sticks.

Totally serious about this. Aside from the Penguins' equipment managers, no one else can touch the tools of the captain's trade, or else ... well, he doesn't get angry, but let's just say he also doesn't take any of those tainted tools into a game.

And I share this solely to underscore how striking it was to see him skating around without a helmet in warmups early Thursday night at Consol Energy Center.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Crosby came back quickly but with a broad grin when it was brought up after the 4-3 victory over the Avalanche.

Right. And might he make it a trend now that this thing below happened?



"We'll see."

Broader grin.



And of that third-period goal that wound up the game-winner, he said, "Yeah, it was nice to get one, for sure."

Hey, good for him. Never mind for a moment that it was his first even-strength goal in 21 games -- including all 19 this season -- and just his third overall. And never mind further that Reto Berra wasn't exactly reminiscent of his head coach with that big blade elevated to expose the five-hole. Or that neither Crosby nor Pascal Dupuis' one-touch pass should have penetrated both Colorado defensemen, Nick Holder and Tyson Barrie.

Because if it's fair to criticize Crosby for not producing points even when he plays well -- and it sure is -- it's equally fair, then, to praise him for putting away a partial-break backhander after making a beeline to the net.

Similarly, if it's fair to criticize the Penguins for being maddeningly inconsistent and identity-free even when they win -- and it sure is -- it's equally fair, then, to praise them when they perform with a strikingly even feel in back-to-back games against two very different opponents.

And believe it or not, I'm not referring to that tantalizing 2:08 in the second period that turned out the following from David Perron, Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz:







That brought a 3-1 lead, this despite Patrick Roy having blown a gasket on his loosey-goosey, last-place Avalanche. He even had them very much buck Colorado's usual flair and drop into a New Jersey-style trap multiple times throughout the night.

"When they filled the neutral zone, there wasn't much room," Crosby said.

Nope, but the Penguins made their own, just as they had two nights earlier in beating the Wild by the same 4-3 score. Minnesota isn't as defensive as when Jacques Lemaire was lining landmines along the blue line, but Mike Yeo preaches prevention first, too. And the Penguins, to their inestimable credit, prevailed by playing their own brand of hockey against these two very different teams.

"That's probably what feels the best right now," Ian Cole was telling me. "Ever since New Jersey, we decided we were all going to look in the mirror and see who we are."

Collectively and individually, he stressed.

"For me, hey, I wasn't playing well. I wasn't playing my game. I was looking to move the puck to our stars instead of just playing the way I always have."

Which, I interjected, looked a whole lot less dependent when he initially arrived from St. Louis last winter.

"Exactly. But I think that's true of a lot of guys in here. We had to ask, 'What do I bring? What are my strengths?' And it's ... it's two games, right? It's just two games. We haven't proven anything. But after what happened in Jersey, we had a chance to make that into a real moment for ourselves, and that's how it feels. We'll see."

Exactly. We'll see.

For the moment, all the Penguins have is a still-can't-believe-it 12-7 record and probably their best consecutive efforts of the season's first quarter. That's not nothing. They've got eight goals in these two games. That's better than nothing they were delivering previously. They've got their two best players being their best players. That's definitely something.

All of it still feels like it could be undone in one night -- say, Saturday against the Sharks -- but it's not to be discarded, either. At least not like so many of the season's earlier victories.

"We're better," Marc-Andre Fleury said from the standpoint of the only player who's been solid from the first puck drop in Dallas. "Our work ethic is better, for sure. It's feeling good."

"We're definitely generating more chances. It's nice that it's coming together," Perron said after continuing to look at least a little like the driven scorer who arrived all wide-eyed from Edmonton last season. "The coaches are showing trust in the lines, and we're getting goals."

"We both kind of want that to be our identity," Brian Dumoulin said after he and Ben Lovejoy again were praised by Mike Johnston for handling the opponent's top line. "We want to focus, game after game, on shutting down whoever we're matched against."

That's the mirror Cole was figuratively citing.

It's safe to surmise, though, that this group would do well to not stray too far from it.

"We still have to get better, all of us," Crosby said. "But this was a good test. We had a pretty emotional game, the last game. It would have been easy for there to be a little bit of a letdown tonight, especially with the way Colorado was trapping and there wasn't much space. But we stuck with it. We didn't get discouraged. That's nice. We just want to continue winning and continue building our identity as a team."

He exhaled there.

"We'll see."