CRANBERRY, Pa. -- It was seen a lot last season and it was seen a little Monday night.
And it now appears official.
During Tuesday's practice at the Lemieux Sports Complex, Mike Sullivan's line combinations showed Evgeni Malkin skating on the second line and -- gasp! -- Phil Kessel skating on the third.
In Pittsburgh hockey circles, it's become known as the "nuclear option." It is the result of a four-game losing streak that the Penguins will carry into Wednesday night's showdown in Washington against the defending champion Capitals.
And that was only the second-most radical idea that Sullivan floated during Tuesday's 35-minute on-ice session.
The Penguins' vaunted power play with its assortment of offensive weapons, which clicked at a franchise-record in 2017-18 and is ranked 11th at 23.1 percent this season, was completely blown up. The Penguins have scored just twice on 15 chances in the last four games with the man-advantage and both of those goals came in last Thursday's 3-2 shootout loss to the Islanders.
"It's a matter of executing when we get the chances," Crosby said. "Our execution hasn't been there as a whole, consistently. We've been guilty of forcing plays."
On Tuesday, the power play had Kessel, Malkin, Bryan Rust, Patrick Hornqvist and Olli Maatta on one unit and Crosby working the left half wall on the other with Jake Guentzel, Dominik Simon, Jack Johnson and Kris Letang.
"Sometimes, just like a line combination, if it gets a little stale and goes through some struggles, then sometimes just by splitting it up, it gives them a fresh look," Sullivan said.
Whether he was sending a message or will actually follow through with those power play units tomorrow night remains to be seen. Sullivan tried a similar arrangement shortly after taking over as coach in December of 2015, but quickly abandoned it.
One thing that doesn't look like it's going to change Wednesday night is Malkin and Kessel on separate lines.
Malkin was reunited with Carl Hagelin and Patric Hornqvist, while Riley Sheahan centered Guentzel and Kessel. Those were the lines that the Penguins employed with good success for most of last season.
When I asked about why he liked the dynamic of having Malkin with the Swedes, Sullivan didn't hesitate, reciting some compelling statistics.
"I know that when that line was together Geno has 21 goals in 22 games," Sullivan said. "It encourages Geno to shoot the puck. It's more of a straight-ahead, north-south line. We're trying to simplify the game right now. That's part of the answer, part of the solution to getting back to playing the way we're capable of playing.
"We've got some balance through our lines and we're hoping that just by simplifying the game for everyone, taking some of the thinking out of it, and a little bit of just getting after it out there and trying to establish some momentum will help us."
After Sullivan split up the defense pair of Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin, one of the finest in the league this season, it would seem anything is fair game as the coach looks to right the Penguins' wayward ship.
Last season the trio of Malkin, Hagelin and Hornqvist was arguably the Penguins' most effective. They had a 57.41 Corsi For percentage and converted on 60 percent of their 84 high danger scoring chances, according to naturalstattrick.com.
After dropping four in a row for the first time since the 2016-17 season, Hagelin wasn't surprised to see a shakeup.
"You've got to do something," he told me. "As a player you have to look at yourself and play better, and whatever the coach decides, he decides."
Hagelin said that his line had good chemistry last season and they can build off that if called upon again.
"I think we played close to each other in the offensive zone and kept pucks in and scored a lot of goals from in-zone plays," he said.
Hagelin and Hornqvist are both strong on the forecheck and can create lanes for Malkin, who has been without a goal the last two games with just shots on goal. For all of Kessel and Malkin's magic together, Malkin tends to defer too much to Kessel at 5-on-5.
However, the move does not come without some controversy. Last season ended against the Capitals with rampant speculation about not only Kessel's health, but also his relationship with his coach.
Obviously, Kessel is not a third-line plugger, nor is he paid like one. But he did record career highs in assists (58) and points (92) largely playing alongside Guentzel and Sheahan. That unit converted on 58.33 percent of its high danger scoring chances.
"I think it adds to our depth," Sheahan told me. "Three lines with some elite scorers on it, that's dangerous. And then the fourth line can contribute. Trying to find some jump and some chemistry. Switching up things might be a good thing."
• Crosby says players talk behind coaches' backs all the time and coaches do the same to their players. That's not just hockey, that's life. They just never have those conversations recorded and put on the internet.
But that's what happened recently to a handful of Senators players in an Arizona ride-share. It's the latest PR nightmare for the Senators but Crosby absolved the players of blame. This one was all on the driver.
"It doesn't matter if you you're a hockey player or just someone looking to jump in a car and get a lift," Crosby said. "It's too bad to see that. People try to do the responsible things, especially if they've been drinking and things like that. Try to be responsible and jump in a car just to be taken advantage of like that is just wrong. Anyone of us has been in that position before. Unfortunately, that happened."
• Derick Brassard remains "status quo," according to Sullivan.
• Only three teams have won multiple Stanley Cup championships this decade and two of them -- the Kings and Blackhawks -- have fired their coach.
On Tuesday morning, the Blackhawks relieved Joel Quenneville after 10 highly-successful seasons in Chicago. That leaves Sullivan as the lone coach with multiple titles still active. In 2014-15, Sullivan served as player development coach for Quenneville and the Blackhawks, winning the Hawks' third Cup in six years.
"I think his resume speaks for itself. He's a terrific coach and a great person," Sullivan said. "I enjoyed the limited interaction that we had while I was working there. It's hard to see those guys in the circumstances they're in."
The Blackhawks fired Quenneville after getting off to 6-6-3 start after missing the playoffs last season. The Kings fired John Stevens over the weekend after L.A. got off to a 4-8-1 record. He had been an assistant on Darryl Sutter's staff for the Kings' two Cup championships.
• Here are the lines and pairs the Penguins used in practice:
Simon-Crosby-Rust
Hagelin-Malkin-Hornqvist
Guentzel-Sheahan-Kessel
Grant-Cullen-Sprong
Johnson-Letang
Maatta-Oleksiak
Dumoulin-Riikola