Hockey's the world's fastest team sport, and it's blessed to have the world's fastest training camp. A couple days after everyone reports, they plunge right into preseason games. A handful of those, and they're ready for the real deal.
It can all be a blur.
What's more, that blur can become filled with fringy fare. You know, fourth-line composition, penalty-killing breakdown, backup goaltender and all that.
In that spirit, then, take a moment to appreciate -- no, applaud -- this:
This was midway through the Penguins' 7-3 preseason win over the Blue Jackets, Saturday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena, and this was peak Sidney Crosby playmaking.
Yeah, yeah, the game meant nothing, Columbus' lineup was a shell ... whatever. Brilliance is brilliance.
On the above sequence, Jake Guentzel settles a floating puck and pushes it down to Crosby below the goal line. Dillon Simpson, the Columbus guy wearing No. 79, chooses not to pursue, following John Tortorella's system that keeps defensemen guarding the posts. Guentzel drifts back toward the dot to get open for a shot.
Confession to make: I wondered why Crosby didn't go right back to Guentzel.
Further confession to make: Doubting Crosby's decision-making is dumb.
It's hard to make out on the distant camera angle up there, but once Crosby begins stickhandling, he glances once back at Guentzel. And I confirmed this directly.
"I did look back at Jake," Crosby told me afterward. "But I wanted Tanger."
And therein lies the brilliance. He knows Simpson and his goaltender, Joonas Korpisalo, have to focus primarily on him, which they do. As such, he knows they're both way too deep in the zone -- as are two other Columbus skaters in the vicinity -- to do anything about a potential chance from the slot.
Enter Kris Letang, whose decade with Crosby serves him so well on a sustained attack, to take the simple feed and execute a fine finish.
Want another?
Cool, because Crosby and Letang connected again three minutes later:
This time, Crosby gathers the puck just inside the Columbus blue line, sees -- or senses, because one never knows with him -- that Letang's arriving with speed behind him along the right boards. So, again with the deception, he skates one way and dishes the other, backhanding at 270 degrees to Letang. Meanwhile, two prospects, speedy Adam Johnson and big Anthony Angello, both set lateral targets, with Johnson eating first.
Safe to say those kids never shared a sheet of ice with someone who ensured they'd be that open.
"It's just amazing," Angello would say, "to even be around these guys."
• I've written countless columns that don't age well. But this one, which pretty much gushed about Juuso Riikola on the very first morning of training camp, is aging like Matt Cullen. It's natural to keep waiting for a setback, but there hasn't been one yet.
Curb the immediate enthusiasm, though: It's close to inconceivable that he'll start the season in the NHL. He doesn't have to clear waivers to play in Wilkes-Barre, and he's still got something to gain from adjusting to the North American game and rink size in the AHL.
I think.
• Cody Tucker's got a ton more on Riikola from this game.
• Speaking of aging like Cullen, all the old man did was score twice -- once on a slick-skating wrap, the other a slam dunk right in front -- and conduct a clinic on short-range, tight-quarters passing while centering a no-nonsense line of Zach Aston-Reese and Patric Hornqvist.
I asked Aston-Reese about that, and the answer was beautiful:
So how was it, pray tell, that on a line with two wingers who were basically born in a goal crease, Cullen was crashing right there with them?
"Just having fun," Cullen told me with the familiar smile. "It's one thing to go through camp, but to get out here in our building and be part of a game, it just feels good to get going."
• Matt Murray stopped 30 of 33 shots, but the strongest signs of his best self were all in place: He was quiet in his motions, calm in his reaction, and yet he still worked like crazy to see the longer-range shots.
"That feels like it's harder than ever in this league," he told me afterward. "It used to be you had to see around one guy, but now there are layers. Especially with a team like Columbus that always goes to the net hard. There's a lot you have to see through."
While still maintaining a stance to stop the actual shot.
"Exactly. You can't get too off-balance, or it doesn't matter if you see it or not."
• Riikola's raising eyebrows, and it's possible that he's raising the games of other defensemen. Hey, if the player who's theoretically seventh or eighth on the depth chart is looking like No. 1 in camp, it'll have that ripple effect.
Or not.
Jamie Oleksiak generally doesn't operate with a higher gear than the one he puts in play, so I'm much more inclined to accept that he's doing things like this just because he's having a superb camp of his own:
The Columbus winger trying to blow by Oleksiak on that first-period shift is Vitaly Abramov. And the Columbus winger who, within a split second of gaining the Pittsburgh zone, is then chasing Oleksiak the other way, is Vitaly Abramov.
"I feel like I've got to be doing everything right to be ready for the season," Oleksiak replied when I brought up that play. "Keep my feet moving and get that long stick out there."
Big grin from the Big Rig followed.
• Why do NHL teams give prospects a shot in preseason games?
Because, ideally, they carry a different level of confidence upon returning to their lower-level teams, as Jordy Bellerive and Calen Addison demonstrated by both scoring Saturday night in their WHL opener for Lethbridge. That's always neat to see.
Jim Rutherford's made drafting an immense challenge for his scouts, but the development process hasn't shown any signs of diminishing.
• Thanks to Phil Spano, the NHL's off-ice official at PPG Paints Arena, for reaching out to share this for our readers: Derek Grant was credited with an assist on Riikola's goal but, even though it was at even-strength, he didn't get a plus.
Crazy?
Not at all. As Spano explained, Grant dished the puck, then went to the bench on the fly, and he'd been fully replaced by Jean-Sebastien Dea, who got the plus once Riikola's rush was complete.
That's a first for me to witness.
• More pucks this afternoon. Red Wings at 3:08 p.m. Kids' day, which is always an amazing event in that context alone. It's one of many, many reasons the Penguins have captivated their city.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Blue Jackets, PPG Paints Arena, Sept. 22, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS