Even after 1,466 games in the NHL, Matt Cullen's 42-year-old eyes can still light up like a Minnesota schoolchild when he talks about hockey. He eats, drinks and sleeps the game. It's what keeps him going.
Informed late Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena of some of the company he was keeping by scoring 20 short-handed goals in his NHL career, he nodded and laughed.
Bob Gainey. Denis Savard. Brett Hull. Hall of Famers.
In the league's century-plus history, only 79 players have scored as many or more short-handed goals. And heck, Cullen's only been a part of half of that history ... kidding, of course.
At 6:58 of the first period, Cullen opened the scoring in the Penguins' 4-3 overtime win over the Kings by scoring his third goal of the season and first since returning from a leg injury three games ago. It was Cullen's first short-handed goal since April 6, 2017, vs. New Jersey.
The sequence which resulted in Cullen's 262nd career goal started when Bryan Rust collected a loose puck in his own end and raced the length of the ice on a 3-on-2 break with Cullen and Brian Dumoulin. From the top of the right circle, Rust fired a wrist shot that Jonathan Quick pushed into the corner. However, Cullen gathered the rebound in the corner and curled around the faceoff circle, with Kings' 21-year-old rookie Matt Luff giving chase. From between the hashes, Cullen let loose a wrist shot that beat Quick high to the blocker side:
Besides giving the Penguins a 1-0 lead, it was their second short-handed goal in as many games.
Just 24 hours earlier, Zach Aston-Reese converted on a 2-on-1 from Riley Sheahan in a 5-3 win over the Bruins:
The Penguins had gone their previous 30 games with zero short-handed goals. They had been one of just three teams to not score a single goal while down a man this season.
Well, the current Penguins can now do no worse than tie the 1967-68 and 1968-69 editions -- the first two seasons in franchise history -- for fewest short-handed goals in a season (2).
There's really no secret to scoring short-handed:
"They present themselves," said Cullen, who trails only the Bruins' Brad Marchand (23) for the most short-handed goals by an active player. "The key, when you're pressing the puck and you're thinking pressure, you seem to create those opportunities. Obviously, with a guy like Rusty with his speed, he creates a lot, taking it down the other end. Sometimes those plays present themselves, a lot of time they don't. But anytime you apply pressure you give yourself the opportunity."
Mike Sullivan, who carved his niche on the penalty-kill and scored 16 short-handed goals during his 11-year NHL playing career, insists that nothing has changed schematically about the PK. There's no green light to take chances when down a man.
"First and foremost, we're trying to keep it out of our net," he said of his team's seventh-ranked PK, which went 2-of-3 Saturday night against the Kings.
However, the coach did throw in a wrinkle on the Penguins' second kill of the game. After Olli Maatta took an interference penalty at 5:22 of the first period, Sullivan had Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel stay on to take a defensive zone draw. Those two -- two-thirds of the top line — then killed off the first 25 seconds of the penalty and did generate some brief offensive zone time.
That duo has been used sparingly on the PK, just 4:13 this season, usually when trying to protect a lead.
But in a scoreless game against a Los Angeles team which has now given up seven short-handed goals, one fewer than only the Penguins, it would seem Sullivan may have been looking for a spark.
"If the opportunity presents itself, guys are going to react on their instincts and take advantage," he said. "I think that was the case again tonight with Cully. It was a terrific play on their part, just being active up the ice."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY