The Penguins have played many games this season when they haven't been at their best, far more than they or Mike Sullivan would have liked.
After a wild, roller-coaster win a night earlier in the nation's capital, they were not at their best Thursday, either, but they did hold off the Wild, 2-1, at PPG Paints Arena for their second victory by that score in as many nights.
The slumping Wild, now losers of 11 of 17, entered Thursday's game with fresher legs, having been idle Wednesday in Pittsburgh. After his team's morning skate Thursday, though, Bruce Boudreau said he didn't anticipate that being an advantage for his side, adding of the Penguins, "I think they're still in the mode. It's almost like their adrenaline is still flowing from the night before."
Boudreau was half-correct. No, the Penguins' fatigue didn't end up being a major factor against the Wild. But the Penguins' didn't exactly carry over any adrenaline from the intense, emotional, payoff-atmosphere win over a hated rival the night before into this game against a non-conference opponent.
The Wild played a very structured, conservative style against the Penguins, which contributed to the lethargic feel of Thursday's game.
"It's tough to have the same emotion in that type of game," Kris Letang said:
If anyone was feeling the effects of the night before, it was Letang.
The Penguins played almost the entire game in Washington with only five defensemen after losing Jamie Oleksiak to injury. Letang was facing the most pressure in Oleksiak's absence, tasked with playing 32:22 of ice time -- over eight minutes more than any other defenseman.
Letang was again heavily utilized against the Wild, leading the pack with 26:37 of ice time. That's 58:59 of ice time, nearly a full game, in 48 hours.
"It is what it is," Letang said. "Somebody goes down early, everybody has to step up and play larger minutes. ... It's part of the game. When somebody goes down, you try to pick it back up."
Sullivan sounded happy with the effort.
"Yeah, real happy," he said. "I thought that was our biggest challenge, just to get reinvested after a real emotional game last night. That game in Washington had a playoff feel to it. But I thought our guys came back with a lot of energy. We tried to use the bench as best we could and keep our shifts short. I thought the players made good decisions with the puck. They didn't overstay their shifts, so we were able to roll the bench pretty well. I give them a lot of credit. They played hard tonight."
The game came down to simple but costly mistakes from the Wild, unlike like the hard-fought battles of the night before.
In the first period, goaltender Devan Dubnyk misplayed the puck and sent it right to the stick of Jake Guentzel. Guentzel easily directed the puck to Bryan Rust, who tapped it into the empty cage:
Midway through the third period, it was a little bit of déjà vu with nearly the same play. Greg Pateryn, not Dubnyk, turned the puck over behind the net. Guentzel again capitalized on the turnover and fed the puck to Rust, who again scored from within feet of the net:
"It's a game of inches, and it's game of mistakes," Pateryn said. "The team that capitalizes on the other team's mistakes is usually the one that wins, and that's what happened tonight."
"We gave them two goals," Boudreau said. "You can't give the Pittsburgh Penguins two goals and expect to win, no matter what you do."
Casey DeSmith, one of only three Penguins who didn't have to play back-to-back nights -- the others were Dominik Simon and Juuso Riikola -- offered praise for the way the players in front of him handled both games.
"We played great last night, and we followed it up with a great game tonight," DeSmith said. "I can't speak to how tired those guys were, but I imagine it was pretty grueling for them. To hold the team like that to one goal at home on a back-to-back, it says a lot about a lot of these guys' characters."
After Wednesday's fierce divisional win on the road, Thursday's grueling game of inches, and Saturday's upcoming contest against the young Hurricanes, the coming holiday break could not arrive at a better time for this team.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Bryan Rust
Penguins right winger
The Penguins' only goals of the game. Of course Rust gets No. 1.
2. Casey DeSmith
Penguins goaltender
Forty saves on 41 shots. He remained steady after an early goal on a long-range wrister.
3. Jake Guentzel
Penguins left winger
The guy who capitalized on Minnesota's turnovers and set up Rust's two goals.
THE INJURIES
• Jamie Oleksiak, defenseman, missed his first game with a concussion sustained a night earlier in a fight with Washington's Tom Wilson. There is no timetable for his return.
• Dominik Simon, left winger, returned to the lineup after missing five games to a lower-body injury. He logged 17 shifts without a point or shot.
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to be out until mid-February after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
THE GOOD
Let's cast the spotlight on the fine defensive work of ... Phil Kessel. No, seriously.
Kessel's offensive struggles -- and that of linemate Evgeni Malkin -- have been well documented. There's been speculation about their professional relationship with Sullivan and the coach's demands that they play with more of a "defensive conscience."
Perhaps, Sullivan's words struck a chord.
With 9:58 remaining in the first period and the first power play unit on the ice after Mikael Granlund's tripping penalty, Kessel may have kept the Penguins from their league-worst ninth shorthanded goal against.
This is Kessel skating like mad on the backcheck to not only prevent a 2-on-1 but also strip Marcus Foligno of the puck with ease:
And this was Kessel with 11:35 remaining in the second period, when he got a stick in the lane on Jordan Greenway's pass from the left circle that Luke Kunin was already teeing up for a one-timer:
Kessel might never garner Selke votes and he can be a defensive liability, but give credit where credit is due. -- Chris Bradford
THE BAD
Greenway's first period goal was one that DeSmith would like to have back:
It appeared to be an innocuous rush from the Wild, but it put the Penguins in a hole early.
DeSmith is one of the best goaltenders in the league when facing high-danger shots, the shots that come from within feet of the net. DeSmith has a high-danger save percentage of .864, the fifth-best in the league among goaltenders who have played at least 500 minutes this season.
DeSmith's medium-danger save percentage is .903, ranking 30th in the league. His low-danger save percentage is .964, ranking 29th in the league.
Greenway's shot came 36 feet from the net. It was classified as a low-danger shot, albeit approaching the medium-danger area. It was a shot that DeSmith should have been able to stop, but it originated from an area that has caused DeSmith problems this season.
Thursday's win gives DeSmith a record of 11-6-4, with a goals against average of 2.42 and save percentage of .926. His weakness with the softer goals hasn't caused too many problems for him this season, but it's a puzzling trend. -- Haase
THE PLAY
How about the Wild turning the puck over behind their net, followed by Guentzel feeding the puck to Rust for a goal?
So good they did it twice, as Bradford covers in Drive to the Net. -- Haase
THE CALL
The Wild took a penalty for too many men with two minutes remaining in the game. The call negated 23 seconds of a Wild power play and gave the Penguins a power play of their own for the final 1:37 to all but seal the win.
The Wild were caught with seven skaters on the ice, one too many after pulling the goaltender.
The infraction was immediately noticed by Evgeni Malkin, who stood up and began waving his arms and yelling to the officials. -- Haase
THE OTHER SIDE
The Wild aren't all that fast, all that skilled or all that anything. But what's stood out of late is their lack of offense, totaling two goals over their past three games, all losses.
In this one, they ran up 41 shots, including 25 scoring chances and 13 high-danger chances. They also fanned on two vacated nets, including a golden chance for Mikael Granlund on a two-on-one midway through the second period.
Those chances were the focus of Boudreau's postgame press gathering:
That all sounds righteous, but Boudreau omitted that his team went the first nine-plus minutes of the second period without putting a single puck on DeSmith. Or that, even though they had the puck in high-danger areas, they seldom seriously threatened on the shots that followed. Or that, in the reverse gear, the Wild's defensemen gave up enormous gaps on the Penguins' rushes up ice.
Minnesota's got many more pressing matters than missing open nets. -- Dejan Kovacevic
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will travel to Raleigh, N.C., Friday. They're scheduled for a Saturday skate at 11:30 a.m. followed by a matchup with the Hurricanes at 7:08 p.m. DK will cover. -- Haase
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Wild, PPG Paints Arena, Dec. 20, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS