WASHINGTON -- With the Capitals defense taking the middle of the ice away and forcing the Penguins to the perimeter, Mike Sullivan's team was still able to win Game 1 of their second round series on Thursday.
They won because they were able to win the game within the game. Two of the Penguins' three goals in a critical 4:49 stretch early in the third period came courtesy of deflections.
Trailing 2-0, Patric Hornqvist got his stick on a Justin Schultz shot from the point at 2:59 of the third to start the comeback:
At 7:48 of the third, Jake Guentzel completed it by redirecting Sidney Crosby's shot under Braden Holtby's arm pit:
And as Sullivan was saying Friday morning during his off-day teleconference with reporters, these seemingly random plays were no accident.
Obviously, having the personnel and the hand-eye coordination help, but it's a skill that is meticulously detailed in almost every practice. Under Sullivan, the Penguins have been one of the best teams at tipping pucks; maybe the very best.
"I just think it's part of the evolution of the game when you look at how offense is being generated in today's game, especially off the offensive zone cycles," Sullivan said. "The way teams collapse coverage and have numbers below the tops of the circles, you have to have the ability to use the points and get your defensemen involved and when defensemen are shooting the puck you can see layers of shot blockers, sometimes you need another avenue to get the puck to the net because of the shot blockers that are in the lanes. Just providing those sticks or those deflection opportunities that give the defenseman an opportunity or another avenue to get the puck to the net is a big part of generating offense in today's game."
On other subjects:
• Sullivan declined to take any credit for the resolve that his team showed in coming back to win Game 1. That, he said, belongs to the players. They're the ones who have to keep their emotions in check on the ice.
"As a coaching staff, all we can do is raise the awareness of it with our players," he said. "We talk about it a lot throughout the course of the season. We just believe that as a coaching staff that it's so important as far as how our team reacts and responds to the adversity or the challenges that the game presents, because inevitably the game doesn't go your way. What's really important from our standpoint is our ability as a group to respond or react the right way to the adversity or the challenges that take place."
In the playoffs, he said, the ability to respond is even more important.
• The Penguins are not in Holtby's head. At least that's what Sullivan was saying for public consumption (what did you expect him to say?) But with the high-end skill level of his team, they can make any goalie — even a Vezina winner and two-time finalist — look ordinary quickly.
"We're fortunate with the people that we have," Sullivan said. "It's what makes our team as competitive as it is. But certainly we have some guys with the ability on our team to score goals and make it challenging for our opponent's goaltender."
• Washington's two goals in Game 1 came courtesy of a breakaway and a 2-on-1 break, both in the opening 30 seconds of a period (the first and third). Odd-man breaks have been the Penguins' Achilles heel this season, but fortunately for Sullivan they didn't cost his team a win even though Washington had several more attacks with numbers in the first nine minutes of Thursday's game.
"When we don't pay attention to the details and support one another and make sure that we get above the attack and get on the right side of people, then we are vulnerable to those type of circumstances," he said.
• Sullivan says he's been around Matt Murray way too long to be surprised at anything his goalie does. Murray's ability to compartmentalize his game and push aside adversity is what stands out most, he says.
"What we've really grown to respect and admire about Matt is just his compete level and his ability to put things behind him and just focus on that next save," he said. "Matt might personify the mental toughness that it takes to win at this game and he's displayed that from Day 1 that he's become a Pittsburgh Penguin. I think it's how Matt's wired and what makes Matt the goaltender that he is."
• The Penguins' quick-strike ability was on full display in the third period. Sure you'd like to score every 75 seconds or so, as Hornqvist, Crosby and Guentzel did, but it's just not going to happen over the course of 60 minutes. Such surges are part of hockey, particularly in the postseason.
"Hockey is, in a lot of ways, a game of momentum and when you have it, you have to try and maximize the opportunities in front of you and I think our team does a really good job of that," Sullivan said. "It's not like we put a game plan together where we say 'OK, we're going to score three goals in three minutes,' but I think what our team does do is have the ability to maximize the opportunity when we grab momentum in games."
• One win is just that, Sullivan said. The Penguins are obviously pleased to win Game 1, but three more are required to advance. He says one of the best attributes of his team is the ability of the team's leadership to keep things in context and not get ahead of themselves.
"I think our team is mature in the sense that they understand what a seven-game series is all about," he said. "We have a lot of experience to draw on in that regard. We know that Game 1 is Game 1. We're thrilled that we were able to win the game and find ways to win and guys stepped up and made plays at key times, got huge saves from Matt over the course of the game that helped us secure the win, but we also understand that it's also one game."
• The Penguins and Capitals both had off days on Friday. The Penguins will return to practice Saturday afternoon at Capital One Arena.