EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Brian Dumoulin had no idea.
An NHL team logs so much travel time, ice time and game time that it’s not uncommon to come across an athlete who’s lost all sense of the calendar.
How many games have the Penguins played?
When’s the All-Star break?
Hey, what month is it, for that matter?
"I know the month. It's January," Dumoulin would affirm, almost seriously, after the team's practice Thursday here at the Toyota Sports Center. "But the halfway point ... the break ... man, I can't even."
See, this is why I’ll confess to hating halfway-point columns. They generally end up as hackneyed analysis of stuff you already knew, half of which you’d rather forget.
I much prefer, you know, a 52.439-percent-point column. At least I do on this occasion.
Not just because that’s where these Penguins are in their 2018-19 NHL season, at 43 games deep and 24-13-6 overall, but more because this just feels like a meatier break. Or pivoting point, if you will. They’re in the midst of a big rebound phase — that recent eight-game winning streak, the 14-3-1 broader run — and they just flew all the way out here for their longest trip of the winter, a five-game, 10-day western tour that carries right into All-Star week.
In that spirit, then, here are my 39 reasons to believe they’ll keep rolling through the rest of these remaining 39 regular-season games and through to the Stanley Cup playoffs:
• Marcus Pettersson’s a better hockey player than Daniel Sprong.
Yeah, I’ll go there the day before those two meet again Friday night in Anaheim, where the Ducks have lost a franchise-record nine in a row, and where Pettersson actually should be the one having people wondering how a team could let him go. He hasn’t been the catalyst for the Penguins’ comeback — the goaltending has — but it’s also no coincidence that the entire 14-3-1 run I just cited came after the trade, nor that they've conceded all of 15 goals in their past 12 games.
• Because of Pettersson’s impact, when Justin Schultz returns next month -- and it was neat to see him take the ice with his teammates here Thursday -- Jamie Oleksiak might be the eighth-best defenseman on the roster. Try to process that.
• We’re all singing the praises of the best defenseman on the roster, but the No. 2 might be anyone else’s No. 1. Dumoulin’s now been a plus or even player for 19 straight games, an incredible figure regardless of how much one values plus-minus, and his plus-26 rating is the third-best in the NHL … at any position.
• Dumoulin believes.
"Obviously, we went through some adversity," he told me after practice here. "We were losing. We weren't playing good hockey. There were times when it didn't feel like we would win. Now, things have turned. And I still think it's good to look back on, because we have that feeling where we know we can work out of it. We know how to stop it right in its tracks. And the best part is, it's a lot more fun learning and improving like this, when you're winning."
• Somehow, Kris Letang really is the best defenseman on the roster and, with apologies to the Flames’ Mark Giordano, the best in the league to this stage.
• Sidney Crosby’s only been this complete of a hockey player, from what I’ve witnessed, in the Stanley Cup Finals and the Olympics. And believe me, that’s no knock.
When Mike Babcock memorably told a bank of us reporters in Sochi that Crosby was a ‘serial winner,’ he applied the smartest label yet to this generation’s greatest player. Because he called attention — for the first time on a grand stage — to Crosby’s ability to cover all 200 feet in the name of victory, even if that meant sacrificing points and risking scrutiny from the insatiable Canadian press. He was in it to win it. Which he did, in Sochi, in Vancouver and, of course, in the two recent Cup Finals.
Getting that version of Crosby for a full season, as the Penguins are experiencing, almost feels unfair.
• Equally unprecedented is Crosby having a winger who complements him, for such a sustained period, as Jake Guentzel has. Not, with all due respect to Chris Kunitz, since all the way back to Marian Hossa.
• No way Evgeni Malkin can stay this quiet for much longer. Just no way.
And he won’t. He’s coming.
"I'm skating so hard, you know?" he told me after practice here. "Maybe that's not so good because coaches tell me to just relax, play my game. But I hit a post or a crossbar, and I just want to skate so much harder."
He then wickedly glanced over at Crosby at the next stall.
"He's the problem. I pass to him, but he doesn't pass back. I give him the puck because people tell me he's a good player, you know?"
That's the rumor, I confirmed.
"Well, he has to give me the puck back."
By this point, Crosby was in stitches.
• The power play still gives up way too many short-handed breaks, embarrassingly so, as was the case the other night back home against the Panthers. But that’s solvable on a situational basis, and Mike Sullivan’s right to persist in ‘trusting my five guys,’ as he’s put it, to create as needed. They’re currently clicking at 25.6 percent, sixth in the league, and that’s with Malkin still stuck on pause.
Sullivan can’t always enjoy watching this. He openly acknowledges having precious little control over what they do out there. This man has some hubris to him, but he’s also got humility. That’s a heck of a trait in a championship coach.
• Sullivan’s a championship coach. Twice over. But he’s never had to earn it like he did earlier this season. He, his team, and their bond will be stronger for the experience.
• They aren’t slow. Once and for all, stop suggesting they’re slow. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now, even with Carl Hagelin lacing them up for the Kings out here. All they ever needed was to stop playing stupid positional hockey, so they’d stop chasing everyone.
Who doesn’t look slow when they’re chasing?
• The system’s been absolved. Barry Trotz didn’t solve it. Evgeny Kuznetsov did.
• Derick Brassard won’t make it to the playoffs. Not wearing this sweater, anyway.
Not to keep repeating this, but the Penguins would welcome the chance to trade him, and his more engaged — if not all that much more productive — play of late will help that.
Any exchange will clear valuable cap space to address other needs.
• Will a third-line center really be one of those needs?
I’m not nearly as sold on that notion as I was this time a year ago. Riley Sheahan and Matt Cullen both had rough starts to this season, but Sheahan’s looked as confident as he has at any point since his exceptional showing against the Flyers in the playoffs, and the old man’s got five points in as many games now.
Also, and maybe more important, they’re both integral penalty-killers, and Brassard doesn’t even participate in that, as most third-line centers do.
• Cullen believes:
• Rutherford can’t get much for Brassard beyond cap space, since he’s an unrestricted free agent this summer, but he’s certainly got defensemen to dangle amid all that depth. Olli Maatta stands out in that regard, owed $4 million annually on a four-year contract, with youth, two rings and a big heart to sell.
I’m not suggesting the Penguins feel that way, mind you. The next time Maatta’s name is mentioned in conjunction with a trade will be the first. Just emphasizing the options Rutherford’s got.
• Rutherford knows what he’s doing. See Pettersson above.
• Also, see Pettersson’s partner, Jack Johnson.
Set aside the narratives. Set aside the initial fuss over the five-year contract. Watch him. Just watch him.
• Do the same for Dominik Simon. Because he deserves it, too.
Seriously, isolate on this kid — especially if you’re fortunate enough to do so at the rink, without needing to rely on TV cameras — for three or four shifts in a row. I won’t have to say another word.
• If the Lightning’s the legit class of the East, as the standings would powerfully indicate, then that fairly means their Cup forecast again should focus on Andrei Vasilevskiy, who’s now been twice beaten in the Eastern final by better goaltending. Just saying.
• The Capitals reign, but they’re beatable, too. Remember that whole back-to-back thing being hard?
After Tampa Bay and Washington, the Penguins’ roadblocks all come with fatal flaws. Or a half-century of abject failure. Or both.
• Maatta believes.
"I know we've lost to Chicago a couple times, but if you look at all our games lately, it's a team that's sticking with it. Whatever happens out there, we're not changing how we play, what we do. We trust our system and keep playing. That's how it's always been when we've been going good."
• If Phil Kessel privately can’t stand Sullivan, he probably ought to be thanking his coach for precisely that. Because this is now two years in a row that he’s been as visibly dedicated to his craft as at any portion of his time in Pittsburgh. And that’s saying something.
• Remember when the PK was the primary concern entering training camp?
Well, never mind that even Sid’s gotten into the act, this group’s now killed off 23 of 25 power plays over the past 10 games and, overall, they rank third in the NHL at 84.2 percent.
• Show me a team that’s top 10 on both special teams, and I’ll show you a contender. Show me a power play that’s sixth and a PK that’s third, and that’s special in the literal sense.
• How about one that ranks 10th in most shots taken and seventh in most shots allowed?
The latter’s obviously not ideal, but shots are up across the NHL, so it only feels like the Penguins are unusually unwieldy in that regard. They’re only that occasionally.
• They also rank sixth in blocked shots. That’s the Sullivan system, keeping opponents to the perimeter. If they want to gun from out there — think Bruins, Hurricanes and the like — hey, go nuts.
• The travel lightens up big-time after this trip: Only one trip outside the Eastern Time Zone the entire rest of the way, and that’s a quick two-stopper to Nashville and Dallas in March.
• Every year the Penguins have won the Cup, youth’s played a prominent part. I wrote before this season that this season couldn’t be an exception, and it might not be.
Yeah, Sprong, the Great Young Hope, is gone, but he’s not only brought a better player, I’ll remind, but also one who’s just 22. Pettersson plays maturely beyond his years, but that shouldn’t be held against him. He’s young. So is Zach Aston-Reese, who was just beginning to make an impact — not least of which was on poor Colton Sceviour’s skull the other night — before breaking his hand. And remember that Juuso Riikola, although an older rookie at 24, couldn’t have reasonably been expected to show as well as he has in his first try at North American hockey at any level.
• There’s still Teddy Blueger, by the way. He can be the center depth. Get him up here when Brassard goes.
• Sheahan believes.
"We've found ways to win," he told me after practice here. "That's what stands out for me. Sometimes we haven't played our best, but we have enough of that confidence that we come away with the win. There's more consistency now, more depth, more of a completeness to our game."
• Tanner Pearson’s growing on me.
I wasn’t wild about losing Hagelin, and neither, infinitely more important, were his teammates and close friends. Incredible speed. Impeccable character. Super-smart guy, too.
And when Pearson showed up, of course, he’d been mired in a season-long goose egg here with the Kings, and that sort of thing always comes with ugly questions about whether someone might have flat-out lost it. But to Pearson’s credit, he was an immediate fit — on and off the ice, from my observations — with his new mates, and he further demonstrated his value by being … not spectacular at anything, but solid and productive. With maybe a wrinkle or two that hadn’t been expected, with his recent spate of longer-range wristers.
Good for him. Better for the Penguins. Remember, Hagelin, too, was going to leave through free agency.
• Honestly, what stops Rutherford from getting Hagelin back, right?
Meaning for these upcoming playoffs. It’s not like the Kings will need him.
• Bryan Rust never again has to worry about going hungry.
My mom still uses that phrase. It goes back to my high school years when she was happy to see I’d really embraced working in a fast-food place, as she’d point out that, no matter what would ever happen with my career, if I had a willingness to work hard, I’d always be able to eat.
Rust never had his NHL status challenged the way he did through those first 29 games this season and that lone goal. But through all that, he didn’t simply persevere … he excelled in other areas, just knocking and knocking and knocking until that wall eventually crumbled down with that hat trick in Chicago.
The goals haven’t stopped since, and he’s breathing again, too.
“It’s always good to score, I’m not going to lie,” Rust told me. “But I’ll always know what got me here.”
• That said, there still isn’t enough secondary scoring on the wings. Rust’s tear shouldn’t disguise that. Nothing could help this lineup more than a big-time producer, ideally someone to complement Malkin.
Those players are out there to be had, and absolutely so if offering a younger defenseman.
• Want to hear something crazy?
It might be a positive that Patric Hornqvist’s missed as much hockey as he had. That's not to make light of his latest concussion. But with his fearless approach, he’ll always miss some. It’s better not only to get those out of the way in the first half but also for him to recuperate and be at his strongest when the games count the most. He’s kind of good in those.
• Sullivan believes:
• Casey DeSmith’s grown into an NHL goaltender. He’s buried the AHL tag, the journeyman tag, and whatever other insult wags like me might have affixed through his ascension. What a story he’s been.
• Matt Murray’s back. All the way back. "Vintage Matt Murray," as Sullivan labeled him here.
Nothing was going to matter more, and it’s now plainly evident why.
This could be fun, my friends. It really could.
