First, Bryan Rust was felled hard, partially by a pile-driving open-ice check from Dion Phaneuf, partially by committing hockey's ultimate sin and peeking down at the puck:
Off he went, visibly groggy as he'd eventually get helped to the locker room.
Gone for the night. Gone for nobody knows how long.
Next, Justin Schultz crumbled, later in the same period, when he was shoved by Mike Hoffman and had his right shoulder absorb the full brunt of the boards:
Off he went, too, buckled forward, arm dangling and right down the runway.
Gone for the night. Gone for nobody knows how long.
If you were among the 18,610 packed into PPG Paints Arena on this Monday night for Game 2 of the NHL's Eastern Conference final, you don't need me to describe the balloon that burst inside the place at that point. There was abject silence, separately for both injuries, then it was tantamount to a funeral for the rest of the period, perhaps also weighing Kris Letang, Trevor Daley and surprise scratch Patric Hornqvist amid all the other issues for months now.
"Yeah," Conor Sheary would recall for me later. "You could really feel it, too."
Then, the Penguins beat the Senators, 1-0.
Emphatically.
Energetically.
Emotionally.
Somebody get mad, Dad?
Never dispute Matt Cullen when it comes to this sort of stuff: That emotion, that fire, it's been in place for two years, although it often goes unseen or underappreciated. Mike Sullivan stresses 'just play' to the point of urging his players to turn the other cheek when brutalized. It can make the Penguins look passive, even soft.
But the underlying passion burns. Especially when lit.
I've no doubt, especially after a few conversations following Game 2, that this began with a thoroughly emotion-less Game 1, the biggest dud of their playoffs to date and, if they're fortunate, the final one of its kind. As I offered in the immediate aftermath Saturday, they were richly deserving of the overtime loss that followed, it was achieved almost purely on a poor effort.
"Nah, we were just playing," Kessel replied about some of the visible outbursts. "We had a lot of chances, right? Obviously, it’s an emotional game. There’s ups and downs. We found a way.”
As for Malkin, let's just say the head coach had to step up with some mid-game shiatsu to keep him relatively in order:
