NEW YORK -- I'd love it if Olli Maatta was lying.
"I'm completely fine," he replied to my question on that count after the Penguins' practice Monday morning back in Cranberry Township, and he did so without the slightest hesitation. The cameras and microphones were gone at this point, and I thought I'd try at least once -- OK, maybe two or three times -- to find out what's wrong. What's really wrong.
I got nowhere.
"I've got no injury. Nothing wrong," came another reply.
What about his conditioning after all these many maladies?
"My conditioning is as good as it's ever been."
Really?
"Really."
This is all so difficult to digest on so many levels. This terrific kid's already been to heaven and hell and back at age 21, having broken into the NHL as a teen, having shined in the Sochi Olympics, then having beaten cancer, having needed two surgeries on the same shoulder and taking that terrifying tumble into that open bench door a couple months back.
And here he is now, on the eve of Tuesday's Game 3 against the Rangers, expected to be a healthy scratch. Because, of all things, he isn't skating well enough, the singular facet that's the very foundation of the sport.
Someone, say it ain't so. Say it's related to some sort of recovery taking place -- even simple fatigue from any of the above -- so that it feels temporary.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine," Maatta offered one final time, patiently smiling through this.
OK. But even trusting both him and the Penguins' medical staff, there's neither harm nor disrespect in looking at this player, after all he's endured, and wishing he could just take some time off. As in a few months. As in this coming summer, the first real chance he'd have to invest a full offseason in training rather than recovery.
One problem with that: He's required to serve in Finland's conscription military, as are all adult males, and he intends to perform that service this summer.
"It won't affect me at all," he said, referring to his preparation for next season. "I'm not the first NHL player from Finland who will do that, and I know that they have all the facilities and equipment that I can do my normal workouts."
He paused and smiled again.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine. For real."
• To repeat from Saturday, I'm wholly in favor of Maatta being scratched. Just to be clear.
Also repeating from Saturday, I'm also in favor of Justin Schultz rejoining the lineup for Game 3 and, really, I liked everything I saw of Mike Sullivan's lines and pairings in practice. Especially having Evgeni Malkin between Conor Sheary and Eric Fehr, and not at all having to do with how those three might fare.
Although the coach declined to discuss his combinations, it's clear his plan is to allow the other three lines -- those that carried the Penguins to the NHL's best record in the five weeks leading to the playoffs -- to get back to being themselves. They can roll as lines, do their own thing, not try to worry about anything new.
And no, again, I'm not blaming Malkin for Game 2. Rather, I'm suggesting that Sullivan's rampant mixing and matching -- he acknowledged it was the most he'd done in any game since taking over -- was a misguided, possibly overeager approach.
• If you think Jeff Zatkoff was a problem -- much less the problem -- in Game 2, I'd strongly recommend rewinding and watching again. This time with a friend.
• If Marc-Andre Fleury is ready to play hockey, he's doing a sensational job of disguising it.
• Nothing could better summarize the stereotype of Philadelphia's hockey franchise than this sickening shove from behind by Pierre-Edouard Bellemare on the Capitals' Dmitry Orlov, well after Washington was running away with a 6-1 rout Monday night:
Orlov was fine. He skated back to the visitors' bench and kept playing.
He also could have been paralyzed. Or worse.
This, of course, is what the Flyers do. And their fans have generally been no less unsavory, as Orlov found out when he was then pelted by the crowd with the commemorative bracelets given out before the game to honor the team's late founder, Ed Snider.
And to think, some of these same people were offended that one idiot out of 18,500 at Consol Energy Center shouted "Flyers suck!" during a moment of silence for Snider directed by Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle.
• The great, old Montreal goaltender and equally great writer Ken Dryden penned this amazingly prophetic paragraph about the Flyers way back in 1983.
• There's nothing I don't loathe about the NHL's offside replay challenge. If a team maintains possession in the attacking zone for 30, 40 seconds, maybe even longer, then scores a goal, a zone entry that's a few millimeters offside shouldn't impact that in any way.
How far back should that clock be rewound?
Being onside or offside isn't nearly as important as what follows. It isn't worth a replay for any reason. Let the call on the ice stand, and let people actually enjoy the few goals this sport offers anymore.
• By instituting replay for offside, the NHL has ensured that linesmen everywhere will default to calling everything offside when it's close. That way they're never embarrassed by a call getting reversed. The whistle kills the play. Nothing to challenge. And since replay officials are tasked with weighing evidence to overturn the call already made, exactly 100 percent of these situations will tilt toward the play being offside.
In baseball, the tie goes to the runner. In hockey, the tie goes to waving off a goal.
• The Pirates' .385 on-base percentage is No. 1 in Major League Baseball by a margin of 31 points over the No. 2 Orioles. They've scored 57 runs, which ranks 10th.
If they maintain an OBP in the top handful of teams in the majors over the full 162 games, they'll also be among the top handful in runs. This plays out year after year after year, and it's available for anyone to view in statistics that are anything but advanced. Here's the 2015 data, if you're interested.
OBP = runs. Plain and simple.
If your favorite team is leaving a lot of runners on base, that can be frustrating for a day. But it also means it's adept at doing the most important -- and hardest -- part quite well.
John Jaso dives for a ground ball Sunday at PNC Park. -- DKPS- Corner
- Boyd!
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