How about reporting for work?
Yeah, seems like after yet a second New York debacle in as many weeks that it might not be much more complicated than that for these just-getting-by Penguins. They're either taking off the first 10 minutes or the last 10 minutes, they're either focused or comatose, and such extremes generally make for some bad bookends to bad results.
My three keys for beating the Canadiens tonight at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Give a damn.
And by that, I mean defend. Because that's where it all starts -- or ends -- with this group. The scoring comes naturally but, as Mike Sullivan bluntly put it late Tuesday night in Brooklyn, "If you don't defend, you can't win in this league."
Buried within that: You can't win against anyone, even pedestrian playoff omissions like the Rangers, Islanders or Canadiens.
Up in Montreal last Thursday, the Penguins came out OK, duly motivated by the third-period collapse the previous night at Madison Square Garden, but the Canadiens came out that much harder. Patric Hornqvist told me at the Bell Centre afterward, "Those guys really skated hard, were aggressive." And he's right. The two goals they scored in the opening 6:31 were deserved.
That said, we're talking about an opponent that, since that 5-3 rally in the Penguins' favor, has been completely silenced with losses of 4-0 to the Maple Leafs and 2-0 to the Panthers. Actually, they've got 11 total goals over their past seven games. On top of that, Alex Galchenyuk, Montreal's most gifted forward, is considered iffy for tonight because of a hand injury that caused him to leave practice Tuesday. Claude Julien this morning called Galchenyuk a "game-time decision."
There's no such thing as being unable to defend this group. Only unwilling.
2. Beat a real goaltender.
Yeah, I know, they're the easy ones, right?
Well, with all due respect to the many no-names who've given the Penguins fits over the winter -- Christopher Gibson with 36 saves last night! -- this flawed Montreal team will take the ice tonight with its franchise player back in Carey Price, who hasn't played since taking a shot to the mask for an apparent, though still unconfirmed, concussion Feb. 20.
That's welcome news across the hockey world, as Price is still capable of being the very best at what he does, but it remains to be seen how it'll go. Aside from missing a month, he's had almost as rough a year as the team in front of him at 15-22-6 with a 2.98 goals-against average and .904 save percentage. He hasn't been to blame for the overall fall, but neither has he prevented it.
Few would have faulted him in Montreal had he just shut it down for the rest of his team's meaningless schedule, but he was adamant about trying to finish strong.
"You don't know how long those types of things are going to take," Price told reporters in Montreal yesterday. "As an athlete, you want to get back in there as soon as possible. I wouldn't be playing in Pittsburgh if I was nervous about the condition of my head. I'm very confident. The old saying is, 'You can't worry about the fall if you're going to ride the horse.' "
3. Don't get run over.
That'll sound silly, given that the Canadiens aren't exactly venti-sized up front. But I'll be particularly interested to see if their core of decent-sized defensemen -- Karl Alzner (6-3), Jeff Petry (6-3), Mike Reilly (6-2) stood out physically for me last Thursday -- can once again rub out the Penguins' smaller wingers. Seriously, they were just engulfing Conor Sheary and Jake Guentzel at times, which I'm sure is one reason Sullivan was motivated to split them onto separate lines after that.
But then, honestly, I'm just manufacturing stuff here. The Canadiens are worse right now than either of the New York teams, maybe worse than anyone in the NHL.
The only opponent the Penguins face tonight will be the worst version of themselves.