The Penguins celebrate Evgeni Malkin's winning goal in the third period Wednesday. - AP

Penguins

Kovacevic: If Penguins defend just decently, their malaise is barely worth a shrug

Nov 2, 2017 • 1:11 am

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EDMONTON, Alberta -- "Nah. It was never really that bad. It's not like we're that far off."

Patric Hornqvist has a spectacular way of snapping off 'Nah.' Does it more dismissively than maybe anyone I've known.

So when he opened our one-on-one talk with one of those trademark snaps late Wednesday night at Rogers Place, I had probably the most powerful possible indicator that, yeah, the Penguins are OK.

Oh, in addition to that thoroughly complete 3-2 victory over the Oilers.

"It was good," Hornqvist would continue. "We worked a little harder, but it was more about just doing stuff the way we can. There was no problem. There was nothing we couldn't fix."

No one's going to want to hear that, I'm sure. Not yet. Not after the flat-line showings in St. Paul and Winnipeg to open this trip. And certainly not with another of these calamitous back-to-back scenarios to be concluded Thursday right down Alberta Highway 2 in Calgary.

At the same time, Hornqvist's right: It really is that simple. It's been that simple all along.

"It really is," Matt Murray told me after making 35 saves, including two scramblers in the whirlwind final 58 seconds. "You could see it from the beginning of the game. We went out and just played our game, kept things simple, made all our plays, got the puck up ice. ... Look, everybody knows we can score. We're going to get our goals. But we have to take care of our end, and you could see everybody was doing that tonight right from the start."

No exaggeration there. But it actually began before the start when Mike Sullivan, who was about as exasperated as I'd ever seen him after the 7-1 embarrassment in Winnipeg, predictably ran out of rope for all concerned and turned proactive. He didn't rip the players. He didn't bag-skate them. Neither is his style. But he did decide that, if the collective wasn't going to play a sound, smart brand of hockey, what he prefers to call "Penguins hockey," then he and his staff would place one forward who would on each line and let them lead the way.

Most notable was bumping perennial fourth-line grinder Tom Kuhnhackl onto the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust. And on their first shift, look who sprung Rust for a near goal:

Offense isn't why Kuhnhackl was promoted, of course -- it's much more his thing that he was credited with eight hits, double the number of anyone else on either team -- but Sullivan's plan worked across the board. Although the Oilers put 37 pucks on Murray and had an unsightly 70 shot attempts, most were tried from the perimeter and few were high-grade chances or rebounds. The Penguins generally tracked back, forced an incredible 20 Edmonton giveaways and blocked 17 shots, with no single player having more than three.

Small wonder Sullivan sounded at least reasonably satisfied when I asked for his summary:

"It wasn't perfect," the man said.

"It was progress," he said.

"We were pleased with the effort," he said.

Yep, yep and yep.

Kris Letang's been torture to watch of late, and he should know since, as he told me after this game, he and Sergei Gonchar had spent the better part of the two post-Winnipeg days doing precisely that. But in this one, he set up the Penguins' first goal by deftly discovering Hornqvist's blade through traffic ...

... and he finished with two assists, three shots, a jarring check, three takeaways, and the keen observers in the Edmonton press box sharply chose him as the evening's No. 1 star.

Letang even came out for the traditional twirl upon being announced as such, a rarity for a visitor.

His own summation?

"At least I wasn't a minus," he told me, this after he'd dipped to a team-worst minus-15 early in the game, only to end up even. "But no, really, it was better. Sarge wanted me to keep things a little simpler, and I feel like I did. It felt good."

I asked if he'd adopted the old "just defend" mantra Sullivan had instilled in him on the morning of Game 6 in San Jose a couple years ago.

"Well, I know that we all have to just defend when we're playing a team like this because they come at you with so much speed. Maybe it helped all of us that we were playing a team like that."

Letang's lone minus, for what it's worth, was barely his fault: He tried to clear the puck off the glass in the Pittsburgh zone, but it hit referee Tom Kowal, who was in a weird spot on the rink, and caromed down to Connor McDavid, who capped a couple of nifty moves by setting up Leon Draisaitl's tap-in for a 2-1 Edmonton lead in the second:

Then and afterward, Letang fumed at Kowal. All I could get out of him on the topic was a growl.

Sidney Crosby had been a problem, too, if not necessarily a public focal point. He'd mustered one point, an assist, in his previous four games, and he had strikingly slow form for part of this one, too. But one wonderful rush and backhand setup for Conor Sheary brought the first five-on-five goal in three games and tied the score, 2-2, with 22 seconds left in the second:

Evgeni Malkin also was a problem, despite having scored both of the goals on the trip's first two stops. His repeated giveaways and visible lack of focus overwhelmed any positives. But another wonderful rush would bring the winner with 7:37 left:

They make scoring look so easy, right?

Look at that up there: Letang drops to Phil Kessel on that now-standard delayed zone entry, Kessel gets surrounded by four Alberta Ministry of Transportation road cones, he slips a pass to Malkin, and Malkin finds a hole under Cam Talbot's glove.

That is the easy part for this group. Always has been.

Let's chat again after Calgary to see about that other part.

WHAT’S BREWING?

• Taylor Haase, our social media director who basically obsesses over minor-league hockey, will begin doing separate Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling Watch features for you next week. I've been trying to talk Taylor into this only forever, but she's a demanding bargainer, to put it mildly. Never mess with Taylor.

• Matt Gajtka's weekly Matt's Stats, sponsored by Schneider Downs, examines the Pirates' future with and without Tyler Glasnow. This is good stuff.

• I blew it with Friday Insider last week. That won't happen this week. Already have good stuff in store.

• Our next Midweek Reader will be the first for Chris Mueller. Our whole staff was discussing the subject matter yesterday. It won't disappoint.

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