Kovacevic: DeSmith's fire, ferocity needs to catch on

This hard, Matt Murray.

This is how hard you've got to go Saturday night against the Kings.

Like this and this and this:

Casey DeSmith comes with AHL size at 6 feet, 190 pounds. He's a 27-year-old perpetual backup whose professional career opened with a few months of third-string duty for the Wheeling Nailers. And a harsh reality might someday hit, within the modern NHL of super-sized, first-round goaltenders from across the globe, that he'll remain that perpetual backup.

But it sure as hell won't be for lack of will. This guy's grinding. And he's grinding at the goaltending position at a level I haven't covered since another overaged, undersized perpetual backup named Johan Hedberg popped up in Pittsburgh.

On this Friday night, DeSmith pretty much splattered himself all over the PPG Paints Arena ice to pull off 48 saves in the Penguins' 5-3 putback of the Bruins.

"Not a lot of puck luck around their net" was how Boston's coach, Bruce Cassidy, described his team's fate after 51 shots registered, plus 30 other attempts. And maybe that's how it felt, given DeSmith's still-nonexistent presence in the NHL. But it's also terribly unfair, given the ambition and athleticism in so many of the saves illustrated above.

"He just works so hard," Bryan Rust would tell me of DeSmith. "He was great for us. We all feed off that."

That's a far fairer depiction of what happened. Because that's what this player's all about. Not just in games. He's the same way in practices, morning skates, even the silly, spontaneous competitions that follow some of those skates. One morning in Edmonton a few weeks back, he was the last man off the ice, sweating bullets but smiling broadly as he exclaimed to no one in particular, "I'm ready for anything now!"

He evidently was. His enthusiasm is real, and it's visibly infectious.

So when the Penguins laid that grotesque egg in Chicago the other night, the worst loss I've covered in Mike Sullivan's tenure, it stood to reason not only that the coach would stick by DeSmith over a fully cleared Murray but also that DeSmith would do the most to engineer the team's reversal.

Watch when I brought up Chicago, how he barely flinched:

DeSmith won't start tonight. Sullivan openly stated in Chicago, on the morning Murray was cleared to play for the first time since Nov. 17, that Murray would make his return "this weekend." Moreover, no coach goes back-to-back with a goaltender who had to set himself for 81 shot attempts. DeSmith might not catch a wink of sleep after this.

So it'll be Murray. And if the Penguins are fortunate, it'll be the peak version of Murray.

Remember that one?

Yeah, thought so. He'd get ticked off. He'd have a tough playoff loss, and he'd bounce back with revitalized focus. He'd compete. He'd really compete.

Well, fine. Since resuming practice with the team, Murray's spoken of how challenging it's been to sit out with his injury, especially after having struggled so much earlier in the season. Maybe he should consider this whole season to date a loss worthy of one of those bounce-backs.

Maybe, too, he's learned a little from observing DeSmith up close, including from the end of the bench on this night. I'll never be one to knock the spirit of a two-time champion. Murray's proven all he'll ever need to prove in that regard, at least to me. But I'll also listen to those inside the organization who'll profess bona fide disappointment that Murray hadn't shown anywhere near the same fire, the same ferocity DeSmith has. They can't all be wrong.

This is how it's got to change.

• However much anyone complains about Kris Letang's occasional misadventures, his value to this team is immeasurable.

If the Penguins are lucky, the left leg contact with Boston's Joakim Nordstrom that forced him out with 5:04 remaining will amount to nothing more than a charley horse. If they aren't lucky, the contact will have been to the knee.

Wish I could share more, but everyone was mum on this afterward.

• If Letang is out, it's almost inconceivable that Juuso Riikola would replace him, if only because the entire defense corps would be left-handed. That's hardly against the rules, but it would be wild. I'd expect the call to go to Chad Ruhwedel on that count alone.

• Aston-Reese's game was good as gold, from the two goals to the assist/screen on Phil Kessel's goal to all his physical mayhem. But it all began with ...

Well, here's what I asked the kid himself afterward: What was it that he told me back in training camp would be his top priority this season?

"Improve my skating," he answered. "Get my feet going."

Right. And what got him going on this night?

"Oh, definitely my skating."

Bingo:

That was among Aston-Reese's first shifts. He was flying. He looked like he'd finally been set free, real or imagined, with Sullivan promoting him into the top six for the first time this season. And everything else he achieved stemmed from the skating.

"No question," he'd say when I brought that up. "The rest of it is just stuff that I do."

• Another bump-up into the top six that paid off was Rust, and not just because Tanner Pearson, who started out with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel, was a weird choice because he's hardly the type to generate off the rush. Rust followed up his dominant hat trick in Chicago with four shots, two others attempted -- one clanged off the bar -- and, back at the other end, four blocks.

Two of those blocks came on Boston's final push, one of them a David Backes rocket that cost him a skate protector on his right skate:

You know, those reinforced guards that some penalty-killers choose to wear and some don't out of fear that they'll forfeit speed.

Comes with the territory, even for guys fresh off hat tricks:

Funny, but as he was leaving the room after that, he turned and said to me, "And I'm never taking that thing off."

• The physical element was a blast, and the Penguins' outlier total of 52 hits sure energized the crowd more than most games here, but it wasn't by design and there won't be a sequel anytime soon, from what I gathered.

For one, as Sullivan worded it, "We were trying to be physical, and we had the opportunities. I do think, you know, we’d like to have less hits because that means we’d have the puck more.”

He's right. The team that's got possession isn't exactly looking to pound anyone.

For another, the Bruins are "always this kind of team," as one veteran told me, and physical tends to beget physical.

• How Derick Brassard drives the Penguins bonkers, Part XLIV:

That's with a couple minutes to kill on the clock, a one-goal lead and the Bruins buzzing. And yeah, that's Brassard turning around to go back behind the Penguins' net to pick up a fallen glove. (The TV view didn't catch that, judging by what's above, but trust me and probably 18,549 others who noticed.)

As a great man here might say, if I hadn't been here, I wouldn't have believed it.

Now, Brassard did compensate by coming back out and diving behind DeSmith, and DeSmith did make a superlative save, anyway. But it's that sort of strangeness, that ... that ... wait, here's another one, this from the first period:

Partial break. A chance, at the least, to forge ahead and whip a backhander on Jaroslav Halak. Instead, he peeled off to do ... whatever it is that he does when he peels off.

• Guentzel doesn't peel off. He goes where he's got to go:

Watch how he outmaneuvers Brad Marchand to the inside hash and awaits Letang's shot off the faceoff play called by Sidney Crosby.

Nothing remotely complex happens on such a play. Crosby just lets all concerned know which way he'd like to pull it back, the point men have already switched sides to get the lone righty on his one-timer side, and Guentzel lines up on the inside because he's built with enough moxie to make that worthwhile.

His own explanation:

• Evgeni Malkin was better. The assist on Kessel's goal was pretty, it came five-on-five, he skated with authority, he backchecked and he even took a couple shots on goal. No need to take it further at the moment. It sure wasn't Chicago.

• All of this was good enough for this night against a banged-up Boston team missing, among others, Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara. The only marked improvement from the Penguins' standpoint was in effort expended. Otherwise, there were far too many turnovers, notably at both blue lines, and not nearly enough defensive awareness or aggressiveness.

But it's something. After Chicago, anything is something. Let's see where it all leads against L.A.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY