It's not so much a fresh start as, say, a fresh bounce off the reset button.
"It's time to get going, you know?" Justin Schultz was telling me the other day after yet another dress rehearsal, another dry run for a group that, if everyone's being honest, was built long ago for bigger and better. "I mean, you've got to get yourself in shape over the summer, and you've got to have your time in training camp to get ready together. But this summer already ..."
He paused.
Too long?
"Oh, way too long. It's not something any of us, I think, has been used to."
Yeah, that's pretty much it. That's been the prevailing sentiment, the spirit of these once-and-former Stanley Cup champion Penguins as they've prepared for weeks to face the current champs Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena: It's been way too long since they've played one that counted, even if the most recent was against this very opponent on this very same ice just a handful of months ago.
You know, this:
They're ready. They're hungry for more. And man oh man, are they fresh.
Don't even bother asking that one anymore.
To the credit of all concerned, from Jim Rutherford and Mike Sullivan on down, these Penguins have spoken openly not only of the painful loss to the Capitals on May 7, not only of the fatigue that almost certainly contributed, but also of the obvious -- and only -- benefit to an early exit.
"It definitely makes a difference," Olli Maatta was saying the other day. "It's hard to describe, but your body just feels different. You wake up 100 percent ready. You have more energy."
That's been heard across the room all through camp. Too much for coincidence. And it makes sense: In becoming the first team in two full decades to win back-to-back Cups, the first of the salary cap era, the Penguins already were deep into unprecedented territory by the time Evgeny Kuznetsov erupted from center red. They were, to borrow Evgeni Malkin's term that night, 'a little bit tired.'
Not now. Not after a full summer to relax their muscles and, maybe just as important, their minds. Sidney Crosby circled Europe on a World War II history-buff's tour. Malkin went snorkeling off the coast of Sochi. Brian Dumoulin got married. Carl Hagelin and Kris Letang found new family additions.
And the great philosopher Phil Kessel, of course ...
"Same old shit, you know?"#dkps #Pens pic.twitter.com/abua9tv8hX
— Taylor Haase (@TaylorHaasePGH) September 16, 2018
Let's presume all of the above to be basic calendar math, though. And let's delve deeper, even deeper than the Prophecy of Phil, to find six other reasons these Penguins can raise a sixth Cup next June:
6. A STURDIER MURRAY
Each morning when he wakes, Murray reaches to a nightstand on his right -- the stick side, one might say -- for the bottle of water he'd placed in that spot the night before. Sits up and chugs the whole liter before leaving the bed.
"It's my reminder," he was telling me the other day.
No one needs a reminder how much Murray struggled at times in 2017-18. And contrary to the prevailing narrative, it wasn't just a saggy glove. It was, based on an extensive summer of video study with goaltending coach Mike Buckley, across the board. That's why his save percentage dived to .908 from .937 the previous season and why, maybe most disturbingly, his save percentage while short-handed was a jarring .869.
The most athletic saves tend to come with the opponent on the power play. He wasn't making those. He wasn't getting across his crease quickly enough. He wasn't raising the right equipment at the right time, regardless of which piece or which side.
That's not Murray. That's never been Murray.
So he's taken to chugging. From sunrise to sunset and all points between -- he's got a bottle of water perched on the Penguins' bench to grab immediately after each practice -- he's been doing hard hydration. All with an aim of ... not so much adding weight but avoiding losing it.
"I'd say I'm holding about a few more pounds on than I ever have," Murray was telling me, his frame barely bigger than his usual wire but enough to be convincing. "I'm measuring it after games, after practices, and it's staying on. That's got me feeling stronger, for sure."
Maybe that'll do it. To be sure, for what little it might mean, he's appeared more precise, more fluid in his motions, all with the trademark calm.
If that holds as well as the weight has, it'll be an immeasurable boon to a team that could have used a whole lot more splash in net than it got. Imagine the difference.
5. A WORLD OF CENTERS
Letang sweetly summarized the length to which this position's gone from Two and a Half Centers -- Sid, Geno and, uh, Greg McKegg -- to its current state.
"I’ll take Derick Brassard over any third-line center in the league," Letang was telling me the other day. "And I’ll take Matt Cullen or Riley Sheahan — either one — over any fourth-line center in the league. That’s where it’s just crazy.”
It's crazy, all right. It's arguably overload, actually. With Cullen sliding to the left wing alongside Sheahan on the fourth line, he'll almost function like a spare tire, ready to replace any flat along the way. And that's to say nothing of poor Teddy Blueger, a youngster management feels is ready right now for the NHL -- he showed as much in preseason -- but instead gets relegated to Wilkes-Barre.
Still, such depth is huge for what's ahead, and not just for the small stuff like having another faceoff wand should the first guy get tossed. What no one likes to ponder, much less discuss, is the possibility that Crosby and/or Malkin get hurt for some significant stretch. Crosby played all 82 regular-season games in 2017-18 — a career first — and Malkin wasn't far behind at 78. But Sid's 31, Geno 32, and they're more liable to get bumped around on that count alone. And having not one, not two, but three centers capable of leaping seamlessly onto the top two lines, makes for one whale of a steadying factor.
Again, though, no one's really talking about this. They're talking about immediate impact. Especially after seeing Brassard look so much more confident alongside Bryan Rust on a new third line -- "Everything feels really good right now," Brassard told me the other day -- and everyone else about as expected.
"When you can go this deep at center, especially when you've got guys who can move around, it opens up a lot of options for you," Cullen said. "With any great team, you want to be strong down the middle. It makes for hard matchups for the other side. It makes for better special teams. Lots of pluses."
Also unspoken but true: Should all these centers stay healthy and another need arises on the depth chart, Rutherford will have one of the industry's most valuable assets at his potential trade disposal.
4. ACTUAL YOUTH?
This is far less settled, to say the least, but I'll rank it even higher than the previous two, if only because it's still mandatory. I really believe that this team can't win a championship without multiple contributions -- not just one -- from a younger player.
Maybe that'll be Zach Aston-Reese once he's built up more stamina, speed and 'swagger,' as Sullivan worded it upon his demotion this week. He's had a rough summer, his jaw fractured and his brain scrambled by a Tom Wilson cheap shot, and it took him several weeks just to eat from something other than a straw. He'll be back sooner rather than later. I'll bet on that kid.
Maybe that'll be Daniel Sprong if he ever figures out the value in supporting possession rather than drifting back for an open shot. I'm betting on his will and his tremendous skill, but he's yet to show he knows the way. And if camp and preseason are indicative of how much he frustrates the coaching staff, he won't earn ice time based on waiver status alone. Or even just scoring. He'll need to get complete, and he'll need to do it quickly. Jury's still out here.
Maybe that'll be Juuso Riikola. He was the camp darling but, unlike McKegg a year ago, this one's sustainable and quite possibly special. He's fast, shifty, so smart, seemingly effortless in his decisions, powerful and efficient with both the slap and wrist shots and, in what feels like an embarrassment of riches, he's not shy about throwing his frame around physically.
"I'm not supposed to hit?" Riikola joked -- at least I think he was joking -- when I broached that the other night in Columbus.
He's seriously got no idea this isn't supposed to be this easy. He's the real deal. And that'll come with real value not just to a corps that's got a 31-year-old Letang as the anchor, but also, as with the centers, by offering Rutherford potential trade chips.
Again, though, Riikola can't be alone. There clearly isn't much room on the roster for children, but there's a need for at least one of those two forwards to join him in the cause.
3. DEFENSIVE HOPS
Riikola only adds to this, but the defense is deep, mobile and strong on the puck. And I can't overstate the latter.
Rutherford's primary motivation in signing Jack Johnson out of free agency, even though he was coming off a career low in Columbus, was his ability to make the first pass. As the GM remarked back in July, “It’s certainly going to help him with the forwards that he plays with. Go back to the two years we won the Cup and we had a tremendous transition game. You have to have defensemen who can move the puck.”
Sullivan certainly does. He's always prioritized that trait almost as much as mobility. And Johnson, even amid all the badness that made him a John Tortorella healthy scratch in the playoffs, completed 73.5 percent of his passes from the defensive zone to the neutral zone in 2017-18. That was sixth-best among all NHL defensemen, with quality company ahead of him in the Hurricanes’ Jaccob Slavin (76.0 percent), the Ducks’ Cam Fowler (75.9), the Predators’ P.K. Subban (75.1), the Lightning’s Anton Stralman (74.5) and the Kings’ Drew Doughty (74.4).
Maybe just as important, he's executed at that level all through camp and the preseason with the Penguins, and he's even done so when switching from his natural left side to the right, which has surprised me.
"It's something I've always felt comfortable doing, something I've always taken pride in," Johnson told me of his breakouts. "And here, with all the great forwards we have and the style and the speed we play with, I already feel like there's an effect. It's fun. More than anything, it's fun."
Johnson isn't some reconstructive project, as I wrote from Detroit a couple weeks back. Sergei Gonchar's working to instill some aspects of the Sullivan system, but he told me it hasn't needed to go further, adding, "I think Jack doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a defenseman."
We'll see. He can still bang back there, but he'll need to execute positionally above what he most recently showed in Columbus.
For now, the cumulative feel of the arrivals of Riikola and Johnson is that the Penguins' defensemen are more effective with the puck and, yeah, more physical toward getting it in the first place. That's a dual dynamic that was largely missing last season.
2. COACHING PERSPECTIVE/HUMILITY
Sullivan hasn't experienced a whole lot of losing as a head coach, to put it mildly. His first two seasons in Pittsburgh culminated with his greatest challenge being what to speak on the stage at the Downtown celebrations.
But there can't be any question that, in the playoff loss to the Capitals, counterpart Barry Trotz unwrapped one of Sullivan's foundational strategies by exposing -- time and time and time again -- the Penguins' pinching defensemen. And Trotz did so to the extent that Washington's transition game basically won the series, including Kuznetsov's clincher, but also that some in the hockey world wondered if a new blueprint will be needed.
It'll be fascinating to see that play out.
So far, there hasn't been any trace of a tactical change, not visibly and not from what I've been told in the locker room. And maybe that'll be fine, provided the Penguins' primary issue was fatigue -- it's asking a lot of defensemen to cover all 200 feet on every shift -- and provided there's greater emphasis on forwards fulfilling their duties to cover for any pinches.
"I wouldn't say anything's different," Jamie Oleksiak was telling me. "We know what we have to do and how we have to do it."
But if that isn't enough, or if other Xs and Os issues surface in an NHL that's increasingly patterning rosters and strategies based on the Penguins' two most recent Cup teams -- I'm even hearing a lot of Sullivan's more familiar jargon come from other coaches' mouths these days -- then it'll be paramount that the man himself takes a step back, stays humble and adjusts.
This will wind up being a much bigger deal over the course of the season, I think, than maybe most realize right now. And if Sullivan has all those intangibles I believe he does, he'll find a way to stress something beyond doing what they've always done, only doing it harder.
1. TRULY GREAT TALENT
The beautiful thing about following the Penguins in any capacity is that they never require excessive analysis: They've got two generational players, plus a world-class supporting cast so deep I might not have another opportunity in this column for a passing mention of Patric Hornqvist.
Anytime I reach my own stage of such analysis, I'm reminded of something Mario Lemieux told me a couple years ago on the ice that special night in San Jose: "When you have great players like Sid and Geno, you can always win the Cup."
That's why Lemieux and Ron Burkle made the massive management shakeup that led to the past two Cups, an act for which I'm positive that neither they nor David Morehouse receive enough credit. And before that, that's why Lemieux and Burkle stood solidly behind Malkin when he slumped and had some in the fan base insanely suggesting he should be traded, as well as why they've stood by Letang through all his many travails.
Winning with elite talent has been the singular core principle in Pittsburgh from the day a skinny Mario skated his first drill at the Mt. Lebanon Rec Center. And the championships, every last one of them, came from providing that elite talent everything they need, including human resources.
These Penguins can win another Cup. Of course they can.
They're led by a captain who's still the sport's premier player, at least until Connor McDavid can find his way from Edmonton back into the playoffs, hardly a beaten path. When Crosby reported for camp, he was in the standard superlative shape, with the standard superlative example being set on and off the ice, and he somehow, after all he's already accomplished, spoke these words: “Whether you’ve won or lost, you’ve still got something to prove when you come into the next year."
Something to prove. He could have retired after last season and never had a thing to prove in any walk of his storybook life. But that's how he for-real thinks.
Also how he acts, even in mid-September:
As promised, here's Crosby's one wheel, double toe drag deke and lay off to @jakenbake20. He's pretty good. #DKPS #Pens pic.twitter.com/3zWmQbVxUt
— Matt Sunday (@mattsunday) September 15, 2018
And then there was this when the other generational guy reported for camp: “I don’t want to be the guy who wins three Cups and stops playing and be a nice guy. I want to be a good player for the next five, six years, and try to do my best to dominate every game. I want to be in the top 10 in this league for five or six more years.”
Malkin doesn't sound satisfied to stay stuck at No. 101, either.
This is kind of seeping into excessive analysis, huh?
Let's let the philosopher have the final word:
"It should be no different this year."
Anyone care to argue?
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins practice, PPG Paints Arena, Oct. 3, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS