Maybe it was when Ryan Reaves put all 225 pounds of muscle mass into the wicked wrist shot.
Or when Zach Aston-Reese planted all of his own 204 pounds, the rear end first and foremost, in front of the opponent's goaltender for the winning redirect.
Or when Jamie Oleksiak pushed back along the boards with all of his own ... what, two tons? ... with such force that he bowled over two Kings for the price of one.
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEOBut I'm betting it wasn't any of those, at least not in isolation, that prompted my curiously sudden realization that these Penguins are a whole lot larger than either of their two Stanley Cup championship precedents. Because it sure felt like that wasn't finalized until I asked John Stevens about it:
He's Los Angeles' head coach, of course. And his team has been among the NHL's biggest for the better part of this decade. Still is. So he knows just a bit about valuing size, even in this era of speed, speed, speed.
He also knows when his team's been beaten physically. Which just might have happened in this 3-1 victory for the home side Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.
"We lost puck battles," Stevens complained.
"They beat us on the wall."
"That forecheck ... they came at us hard."
Add that to his exceptional response to my question above -- seriously, go back up and watch if you haven't already -- and it paints the picture of what happened. Meaning the bigger picture.
Of the five players gone from the 2017 champions: Matt Cullen and Nick Bonino are both 6 feet 1 but with narrow-ish frames. Chris Kunitz is 5-11, though his physical play has soared miles above his actual stature. Trevor Daley's 5-11. And Ron Hainsey, the only one of the bunch with bulk, is 6-3, 210, but has always been defined more by his mobility.
They've been replaced, coincidence or not, by bodies of greater volume.
And I don't think it's a coincidence.
As I mention in this morning's Friday Insider, one of Jim Rutherford's chief, if understated, concerns over recent months has been that the Penguins have been too small. That's not J.R. going old-school, either. That's him appreciating the cold truth that size still matters in hockey as it relates to endurance. A big man's going to absorb a check a lot easier than a little man. He might stay healthier, too.
Think about it. Few facets will be more pertinent to this three-peat bid. The Penguins will get hit, and they'll get hit hard, regardless of whether that happens legally. They're still fast, as Stevens emphasized in his response, but they aren't as fast as they were and they definitely won't be as fresh.
No one's got a better perspective on this, literally, than the man witnessing it from ice level. So I asked him, too:
Matt Murray brought up another point toward this: Even some of the Penguins' smaller players are strong and have an edge in physical duels. Dominik Simon stands out in that regard, as Mike Sullivan has mentioned several times since his promotion.
Fast and strong?
That's a formula worth pursuing further.
• A moment's pause for appreciation: The Penguins have now won 10 in a row at home. That's tied with the Capitals and Avalanche for the NHL's longest such streak this season. In that time, they've nearly doubled their opponents in scoring, 50-26. And better than any of that, they're now 14-4-1 anywhere since the calendar flipped.
It's possible that this is a terrific hockey team again.
• Forget Aston-Reese's goal up there. As he acknowledged when I asked, "I don't even know what part of me it hit." Looked like his skate. Maybe just a skate lace.
At any rate, again, he did well to stick his chair in the parking spot. But what was more impressive from this perspective was how well he continued to support Sidney Crosby in the attacking zone.
Remember Sullivan's piled-on praise the other night for Aston-Reese specifically in that regard?
Well, this was in the second period:
And remember the praise for good things along the wall?
Same period:
I'm not going to suggest Daniel Sprong can't do all that someday. He's only 20. He could get there. But this does underscore what's being seen from the bench right now.
Aston-Reese, who told me after the game that he's taking great care to work closely with Crosby and offer all he can in the offensive cycle, managed a good grin when asked if that had paid off with that goal.
"Yeah, I think so," he said. "In all facets of life, when you do things right, you get rewarded."
I've added a few spoken words on this, too:
• Sullivan came armed with more praise for Aston-Reese, this time invoking Patric Hornqvist outright, possibly since the kid took his place -- literally -- on the power play. Or because he wound up with four shots, three hits, a block and a takeaway.
"He's very similar," Sullivan said, referring to No. 72. "He's got a stiff game. He's strong. He goes to the net. He's good in the battle areas. He retrieves pucks. The power-play goal we get tonight, he provides the screen for it, takes the goalie's sightlines away. If he's not there, we probably don't score that goal. He has a lot of similar attributes to what Horny has."
Wait, the coach's throat wasn't even clear.
"He's just a young player, but we're excited about Zach's game. He's got a really solid 200-foot game. He's good on the wall. Real good in the battle area, good awareness away from the puck and he makes good reads. So, he brings another dimension to our team because of those aspects of his game. But we're really excited about how his game has evolved since we called him up. We think he's getting better each and every game he plays. He gets a little more confidence. He gets a little more comfortable. He gets to know his teammates and his surroundings. I think that all helps a player. But we're really excited about his game."
We couldn't tell!
• Looking for something to legitimately love about Aston-Reese's goal?
Kris Letang worked a smooth back-and-forth at the points with Olli Maatta, then could easily have swung the puck forward to a wide-open Conor Sheary on the right boards, but instead opted to shoot the puck. Through pressure. Low enough for a rebound. Right on net.
This is when one can be dead certain he's all the way back. Or close.
• For all the never-ending fuss over Reaves, the man's fourth goal of the season Thursday night gave him exactly four more than Oskar Sundqvist, the unproven commodity Rutherford sent to St. Louis in return. Yeah, they also sent the Blues a first-round pick, but the Blues sent a second-rounder back. Not sure how much that matters given where in the overall order the Penguins tend to pick.
I get that the fuss has been mostly over fighting vs. skill on the fourth line. That's a bona fide debate. But the trade itself wasn't and isn't.
"That guy," Murray told me, motioning across the room to Reaves, "has been really, really good."
• Murray's been really, really good, too. Don't lose sight of what's most relevant in this broader surge.
• Man, I enjoy watching Anze Kopitar play hockey. And I've enjoyed it when he wasn't producing points as he is now with 23 goals, 38 assists for the Kings. The guy's just an omnipresent, overwhelming, forechecking, backchecking, faceoff-winning, fantastically skilled force. My stance comes with a bit of a bias from having covered his reign of terror in Sochi, when he almost singlehandedly carried Slovenia -- a country roughly the size of Allegheny County -- to a stunning level of competitiveness. But it applies to his tenure in L.A., too. He's all that. Sun, moon, stars.
I know no one cares. Just sharing. There are two teams out there, and even as a child, I always tried to appreciate both.
• Speaking of appreciation: It's Phil's world, and we're all just stealing his oxygen.
Midway through the first period, with the Penguins making an aggressive change on the fly, he looks way up rink to see Crosby and Aston-Reese, he knows he's about to get clocked by the Kings' Nate Thompson, and he still initiates an aerial pass that would account for the longest nonstop flight originating from Pittsburgh in years:
He did get clocked, too. Kept coming. All night.
M-bleeping-V-P.