Start with this premise: The Penguins can now win a third consecutive Stanley Cup.
That wasn't always smart to assume, and not just because of the scope of the challenge itself. This group was a slow-ish, sluggish mess for pretty much half of this 2017-18 season. Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Matt Murray were all late arrivals. There was legit thought that maybe they wouldn't even make the playoffs.
That's changed.
Partly because the core is absolutely ablaze, meaning those three guys plus -- no particularly -- Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel.
Partly because Mike Sullivan's right foot remains stubbornly strapped to the gas pedal, no matter what alternatives might seem attractive in the moment.
And yeah, partly because Jim Rutherford has made very real additions along the way.
Riley Sheahan's been a find. Jamie Oleksiak's been a godsend. And of course, all of his available deadline resources -- as well as some from Nevada -- went into his real deadline acquisition, Derick Brassard. Even accounting for the miserable Matt Hunwick signing last summer, he's had a good few months.
But good enough?
Well, if you saw this space yesterday, you'll recall that I expressed one concern above all related to the deadline: What would Tampa Bay do?
If you missed it, I described this singular element as "all that matters from the Pittsburgh perspective," adding that "the Lightning are the other Eastern team. No one here would want them loading up further."
Oh, boy ...
We have acquired Ryan McDonagh & J.T. Miller from the @nyrangers in exchange for Vlad Namestnikov, Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, a 2018 first-round pick, and a conditional 2019 second-round pick.
?: https://t.co/6iYsoZZDTS pic.twitter.com/VMv4Wv3Fl9
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) February 26, 2018
At 3:05 p.m., it might have seemed Steve Yzerman had slept right through the deadline. At 3:06 p.m., the entire East changed.
I don't want to be that guy. Any team is beatable. Stevie Y's team is beatable, too, even after addressing their only real weakness at No. 4 defenseman by acquiring a defenseman in Ryan McDonagh who'd be most teams' No. 1, then adding Pittsburgh's own J.T. Miller for even more speed, more scoring and a bit of welcome grit.
But when the Lightning already had the NHL's best record at 43-17-3, the most goals at 226, the greatest goal differential at +57, plus ... you know, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, the brilliant man-child Brayden Point and all those guys ... the bar's been raised.
I like these Penguins. I like them a lot more than than I'd expected to like them at any point this winter. I've openly wondered if even the most optimal scenario could allow for a three-peat, and I wondered it again after speaking on the phone with Ian Cole yesterday and hearing this: "The first year we won the Cup, it felt easy. It wasn't easy, of course, but it felt that way. The second year, it was a battle. Every game. Every shift. We had to battle for everything."
They're ready for another battle. "Ready to compete," as Rutherford put it.
But this battle, this caliber of opponent, will be unlike any they faced the first two years.
• The Capitals?
Please. Those Capitals were beaten in their own minds before ever taking the ice.
• None of this is to suggest Rutherford could have done more. He literally went above and beyond in creating the circus-like scenario that brought Brassard. I shared severe doubt entering the deadline day that he could have added anything more than a Johnny Oduya type, and it's clear from management passing on Oduya through waivers -- the Flyers picked him up -- they felt he's not the same player at age 36 that he once was.
• Regardless, Hunwick can't be the default choice. He can be given a chance to right himself, as he couldn't conceivably be as awful as he was over the weekend -- Florida authorities considered arresting him for trespassing in the Everglades on half the Panthers' goals -- but the Penguins have 19 games left. That's not much. And that would be far more wisely invested in letting Chad Ruhwedel partner with Oleksiak for a spell or even calling up a candidate from Wilkes-Barre.
• Patric Hornqvist changed the Penguins. He did that. And he did it well before Sullivan, who's often credited with this, replaced Mike Johnston.
But the five-year, $25.6 million contract extension he's expected to sign this morning shouldn't be seen as rewarding past performance. Nor about what he still brings at age 31. His passion and all that goes into his performance aren't prone to slumps, and I don't believe they'll regress significantly with age. Tomas Holmstrom, the Red Wings' prototype for the style, kept pounding creases until he was 39, and his age-32-to-36 seasons in Detroit saw the following goal totals: 29, 30, 20, 14 and 25.
Funny, but the goals never stop being found in the same places.
More on this in spoken form:
• There are four centers in the fold, and Carter Rowney will keep right on playing. Mark my words. That's because Sullivan and Jacques Martin value penalty-killing above all when forming their fourth line, and the simple solution is to shift Rowney to right wing and keep him available for general PK and specifically right-handed defensive zone draws.
For that matter, the same logic makes Tom Kuhnhackl a great bet to play when healthy. And Conor Sheary to get scratched.
Parents, teach your kids to play short-handed!
• Nothing funnier happened at the deadline than someone in Edmonton picking up the phone when Ray Shero called:
DONE DEAL: The #NJDevils have acquired @patmaroon from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a 2019 3rd round pick and rights to forward J.D. Dudek. #NHLTradeDeadline https://t.co/ToeZCwCoOM
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) February 26, 2018
Ray's got enough of a, uh, devilish sense of humor to do this, but he should have introduced himself on the call as being Taylor Hall, then hung up, then engaged in about a full minute of maniacal laughter.
• If you're at the game tonight, take advantage of being able to watch whatever you want and keep a special eye on Hall attacking the Pittsburgh blue line. I did this in Newark a couple weeks ago, and it's a sight to behold:
As Olli Maatta told me that night, "That guy's a special player."
• Reason eleventy billion the NHL as an entity remains forever stuck in neutral in the United States: The league-owned NHL Network turned over its entire trade-deadline operations to Canadian TV networks, forcing U.S. viewers to listen to breathless accounts about what the Canucks were going to do with those spare draft picks Vancouver procured for Thomas Vanek. Or something about the Senators' selloff. Or how everything under the sun "impacts the Leafs." It isn't hard at all to find a handful of immensely qualified insiders/experts on this side of the border.
• One final time, in full throat: Cole will be missed. In every way.