Kovacevic: Making playoffs? Easy as tic-tac-toe

NEW YORK -- So there's this one thoroughly scripted play that Conor Sheary and Tom Kuhnhackl absolutely love.

There's also one problem with the play.

"Never works," Kuhnhackl was telling me in a Madison Square Garden corridor Sunday after the Penguins beat the Rangers, 5-3. "Maybe in practice. Once in a while. Never in a game."

Not in the AHL, where Sheary and Kuhnhackl were teammates over parts of three seasons.

Not in the NHL, either.

At least not until this ...



Oh, my. That actually happened.



Let's agree to take a pause from all the pontification -- and angst and suffering -- over whether or not the Penguins will make the playoffs minus Evgeni Malkin. Yes, this victory had to be extra satisfying in that regard, as Marc-Andre Fleury summed up best by saying, "That was huge for us. Just huge." But there will be time enough for all that in the 14 games that remain, two of which will take place in Philadelphia against the Flyers, who are just four points back in the pursuit of the final Eastern Conference wild card.

So let's instead focus on what the Penguins' kids did in this Manhattan matinee, and that's to breathe badly needed life and confidence into this group. Yet again.

Sheary scored twice, both in the second period, and the first was on this fine deflection and finer setup by Justin Schultz, whose vision for these setups is already wowing the Penguins:



"I had a great view of that from the bench, actually," Mike Sullivan recalled with a slight shake of the head. "It was really impressive, first that he got the shot through bodies, then that he found Conor down there."

Good for them. That made it 2-1 for the visitors.

Better yet was the goal that put them ahead, 3-2, if only because its kind isn't seen much in the modern NHL with all the hooking, holding and backward skating that clogs up every slice of neutral-zone ice. And that goes double when facing Alain Vigneault's ultra-conservative Rangers.

I asked Kuhnhackl for play-by-play, and he was kind enough to oblige.

"Well, the play's designed to start down low and really spread the rink," he began.

Hang on, I interrupted: Whose idea was this, anyway?

"It's just something Conor and I have been doing or trying for a while now, and we always wanted to make it happen."

Hey, hang on again. Eric Fehr made the critical first pass from the Penguins' blue line. And he was moved to the fourth line between Sheary and Kuhnhackl on the morning of this game, only when it was known Scott Wilson couldn't go.

"Yeah, but we told Fehrsy about it, too," Kuhnhackl came right back. "I mean, he didn't have a chance to work on it with us, but he knew how it was supposed to go."

All right. Keep going, then.

"OK, so Fehrsy sees me, and I kind of move forward toward him. That helps the play because it brought one of their guys up to me."

Sure did. That was Dan Boyle. Roasted at center red.

"All I'm supposed to do from there is chip it right away in Conor's direction while he gets a full head of steam. Because when he gets going, he's not going to get caught."

Especially not when he circles back down low in the defensive zone, like a drag racer revving up from a quarter-mile before the flag:



Or, in this case, like a secret missile launch. Watch Kevin Hayes' oh-no-I'm-toast body language when he finally notices Sheary bursting by:



Boyle tries to recover, but he ends up shifting toward Fehr, who didn't exactly quit on the rush. That clears time and space for Sheary to go one-on-one with Lundqvist and, rather than overthinking things, as so many of his teammates often do, he realized he had a puck on edge and just gripped and ripped:



"For a goalie, that's the worst, when the puck is rolling around like that," Fleury observed from the other end. "Conor was smart to just shoot that."

His counterpart apparently shared that sentiment.

"He's going low," Lundqvist said, "but the puck hits the top of his stick and goes high."

I sought Sheary's take on all this, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkrxWuehINM

Let's agree on this much today, too, as long as the mood feels right: These aren't the 'AHL guys' anymore. They're Penguins. Pittsburgh Penguins.

Sheary. Kuhnhackl. Bryan Rust. Even baby-faced fifth-round draft pick Dominik Simon, who made his NHL debut, assisted on Matt Cullen's game-winner, and generally didn't look at all nervous in showing a confident first stride and several quality possessions.

"I really wasn't," Simon said. "I don't know why."

"That kid," Kuhnhackl said of Simon, "he's been like that since his first day in camp. No matter where you put him, he just fits right in. He's a total natural."

Sullivan knows this better than anyone, probably. He opened the season coaching Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, of course, and he oversaw development camp, where Simon stood out from his first drill.

Sullivan also knows, as a result, that these kids have to come through for the Penguins to make the playoffs.

Listen to his praise for Sheary: "He's a terrific kid. He goes about his business. He works hard when he shows up to the rink. He does as he's told. And it's just great to see a kid like that get rewarded. He's a good hockey player. You can see his offensive instincts. You can see his vision when he has the puck."

A minor pause followed.

"And his effort is inspiring. And I think it's not just to the coaching staff. His effort is inspiring to his teammates, as well."

We'll see about that. While the Penguins' first game since Malkin's injury Friday in Columbus saw Sheary score twice with only 7:33 of ice time, it also saw the second line -- Malkin's old line -- of Nick Bonino, Phil Kessel and Carl Hagelin produce zero points and, really, zero visibility.

Seriously, did these guys all get stuck in one of the tunnels here?

And for all the grief Kessel gets -- much of it fair -- what is it exactly that Bonino does for this team? Am I missing something?

Sullivan isn't stupid. He sees the same.

Sure, he's got to grasp that his best players still need to be his best players. Crosby had an empty-net goal and an assist to extend his points streak to eight games. Fleury was exceptional in the Rangers' 19-shot first period, conceding only a tap-in. Kris Letang and Olli Maatta struggled all day, and they've got to be better.

But Sullivan's also seen enough from his AHL ... I mean, younger players that he knows they've got to be the engine. Or 'inspiring,' as the coach just might have willingly worded it to send a message to some others.

They might not pull off brilliant rink-length tic-tac-toe dissections like this one again.

"Actually, no," Kuhnhackl confessed, "you will never see that play go that well again."

OK, but they might well benefit from having kids with the guts and the heart to try.