For a full second or two or even three, the moment, amazingly, was almost exclusively Matt Cullen's to savor.
Even though he'd done this ...
... with 67,138 sets of eyes fixed on him.
Even though his every move was followed by hundreds of cameras, microphones and media members.
Even though he was skating on a sheet of ice, glistening under the bright lights of Heinz Field, his golden sweater glaring in contrast.
"Oh, man, I can't even tell you what that was like," Cullen would say before proceeding to tell me what that was like. "I mean, I'm out there ... I score the goal ... and it's like everyone in the seats is so far away that there's almost a delay."
Three seconds, he estimated. Three seconds before the cheer boomeranged back to his ears.
Eric Fehr, his longtime mate on the Penguins' not-really-a-fourth line, made the feed from behind the goal line, and he didn't know.
Michael Neuvirth, the Flyers' goaltender, looked left and right, and he didn't know.
Ian Walsh, the referee, was still skating that way and hadn't yet seen the puck, either.
Tom Kuhnhackl, the other linemate, swooped by a second later to poke away at a rebound that never existed.
Up here in the press box, Mike Emrick and Mike Lange, Hall of Famers both and masters of their craft, fall as silent as everyone else. Their mics, Emrick on NBC and Lange on local radio, might as well have been on mute.
"And I'm kind of skating backward," Cullen continued, "and I raise my arms."
Oh, that did it.
"That sound," Cullen would say with a shake of his head.
"That sound," Sidney Crosby would coincidentally echo across the Steelers' -- I mean Penguins' -- locker room. "It's not like anything you hear in what we do."
No, it isn't.
And in this case, well beyond the boxscore-sized scope of a 4-2 victory over an archrival, it was the sound of a resounding success.
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@Dejan_Kovacevic (3) Sid, (2) Guentzel (1) 282 miles west for my sons 1st NHL game pic.twitter.com/WQWaK3jB33
— Bill Matoney (@bill_remo1) February 26, 2017
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"Obviously, we haven't been able to score a whole lot," Hakstol said, also from what now simply must be the Official Chair of the Word Obviously. "There's been a lot made of that. And you know what, fairly so. I think that's fair. Yet tonight, I look at the opportunities at this time of year, the type of opportunities and the number of opportunities that we generated were pretty reasonable.”
"I played in an outdoor game in high school growing up," the kid said as if he looks old enough to have graduated yet. "But I just think, as a kid, you get excited for one of these games. And to see the bright lights, it's pretty special."
Don't let him, uh, kid you. All these lights are only bringing out his best.
• Murray was Murray. Thirty-five saves, and barely one required enough exertion that he can fool everyone into thinking it was easy.
"It was really special," this kid said, and yeah, he's actually eligible for the Calder, lest we forget. "You know, when you see on the calendar at the start of the year and one that you really look forward to all season, especially it being my first outdoor game. And in such a huge stadium and a stadium with such history, and in front of all the greatest fans in sports in Pittsburgh. Definitely one that I was looking forward to a lot. I feel very privileged to be part of something like this, and I had a blast."
• Crosby found the sweetest way to supplant the ugliest memory of his career with, as he worded it, "a memory I'll actually like from here" with this opening strike:
The captain, too, appeared to appreciate the caliber of the game when I brought it up:
• Nick Bonino blasted home the second of Guentzel's assists for a 2-0 lead...
... then was blessed to be interviewed by Harnarayan Singh, the Hockey Night Punjabi announcer whose ‘BONINOBONINOBONINO’ goal call last summer created its own chapter in the Penguins' championship story.
Singh and Punjabi analyst Hapreet Pandher sat in the row right behind us up in the press box, by the way:
• Cullen, 40, and Chris Kunitz, 36, had way too much fun.
They were the best players on the ice, either side, and it couldn't have been more obvious why that was, right from the first shift.
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"This will be one of the greatest memories of my career. I'm sure of it," Cullen said. "I know I've been fortunate to have a lot of them, but this will be right up there. I wanted to enjoy every moment of it. I wanted to put everything I had into it."
Kunitz wasn't among the players available for formal interviews, but when I passed him in a corridor later and observed his exceptional gusto for this game, he came back with the smile of a child coming off the playground after recess.
Don't think for one second this was just another night to these guys, whether first-timers or old-timers.
"To be out there, to be part of that, and then to score," Cullen said, "that sound is something I'll never forget."
Not that we needed to hear so much as a peep to know that: