NEW YORK -- Old-school Tuesday Takes before a business meeting this morning in Manhattan ...
• The way Phil Kessel strode out of PPG Paints Arena's lower concourse late Sunday night -- all alone, eyes locked forward and frighteningly wide, one purposeful step after another -- he'd have steamrollered a Zamboni had anyone been dumb enough to drive one in his path.
Good. Bring that to the ice, too.
Instead of this ...
Look, bad passes happen. Physical mistakes happen. I get it.
I also get that Kessel's beloved in Pittsburgh. He's been adopted as one of us, the goal-scoring superstar who also looks like he could just as easily be buying everyone a round of Miller Lite at the end of the bar. Even amid that awful 2-1 overtime loss to the Flyers, one in which he repeatedly turned the puck over and once killed his own power play with a silly slashing minor, the crowd cheered in the third period during one break when he was shown on the big video board.
He's Phil. Everyone loves Phil.
Well, maybe it's time for some tougher love.
Because the last time Kessel significantly contributed to the Penguins taking two points was way back on Jan. 30 in that stirring 4-2 victory over the visiting, league-leading Lightning. He had a goal and an assist that night, he was creating all over the place, and he pretty much puppeteered the power play.
He was Phil.
In 23 games since then, he's got three goals and 15 assists. All three goals and half of the 18 points have come on the power play. At five-on-five, he's failed to finish any of his 41 shots in that span, he's committed six minor penalties, he's drawn only two, and he's posted a 47.84 Corsi For percentage, second-lowest among the Penguins' forwards in that span.
Now Evgeni Malkin's out, Sidney Crosby can only be counted on so much, Kris Letang's still somewhere in the void, and the other of Mike Sullivan's stars needs to do what he's done so often in the past -- including earlier this very season -- and step up. Sharpen up. Shoot the puck. Swoop in for rebounds. And for crying out loud, bear down on the power play as if the coach won't keep giving you chance after chance after chance.
Be that Phil again. Be the one who might as well have been team MVP in 2017-18. Tonight in Raleigh would be a fine time to resume.
Maybe that's what those wide eyes were envisioning.
• Best news of the day came from Jim Rutherford telling our site yesterday that Malkin will be out "a week or two." That means he's a virtual lock to be ready for the playoffs. And it should put all the more pressure on all concerned to qualify for those playoffs without his help, so he doesn't need to be rushed.
• Start Matt Murray on the first three games of this trip: Raleigh, Nashville and Dallas. Casey DeSmith can have the Rangers here at the end.
• While the Penguins, Hurricanes and everyone else in the East battle it out breathlessly, the Lightning coolly clinched the Presidents' Trophy last night, an amazing achievement with 10 games left for most teams. But that's also how spectacular they've been all season long and, really, never more than right now: Since beating the Penguins, 5-4, Feb. 9 in Tampa, the Bolts have gone 17-2 and, within that, blew through the Flames, Bruins, Jets, Maple Leafs and Capitals along the way by a combined score of 27-11.
No one's ever a shoo-in for the Cup, but these guys are 56-13-4 with a mindboggling plus-96 goal differential that's 46 goals better than anyone else's!
• That said, the NHL needs sharper interns:
The East belongs to them.
You can go ahead and give the Eastern Conference to the @TBLightning. pic.twitter.com/X2eD6HF2fK
— NHL (@NHL) March 19, 2019
• Almost any argument rooted in absolutes is doomed to failure. The world doesn't operate in absolutes. Shades of gray are always more accurate.
So it is with this silliness: The presence of an NHL tough guy should deter any and all acts of violence against his team.
Once the Blues' Robert Bortuzzo made up his mind to stick Malkin in the ribs, nothing shy of an act of God was going to stop him. Later in the game, when he made up his mind to stick Crosby across the back, the same applied. In those actual moments, there's no deterrent.
Now, could Bortuzzo be quaking about maybe having to drop the gloves with Erik Gudbranson?
Sure, if he were someone else. Bortuzzo isn't the greatest fighter, but he showed even in his time in Pittsburgh he'll go with anyone. So he was operating without fear of consequences, just as he does religiously in dropping to block shots, eat pucks, whatever it takes. That's how he's wired.
Gudbranson's value to the roster, in addition his having been a very good defenseman to date, is to deter some of that garbage. To cut it down. To at least make people think twice about it. And ideally, to make them think about it before the puck even drops.
How do you measure that?
You can't, of course. No one can.
But it's also absurdly unfair to cast any enforcer as some omnipotent being capable of warding off all evil acts.
• Now, could Gudbranson or someone else on the Penguins' roster had gotten in Bortuzzo's face, particularly later in the game when the Blues were up by four?
Yes. Absolutely. And they should have.
But that's a wholly different discussion than the deterrent thing.
• There's also this approach to dealing with adversity, courtesy of the incomparable Dana Heinze:
So this morning I collected all the Stadium Series gloves helmets and pant shells. ( they are under the helmets) Yesterday was our last time wearing that uniform. pic.twitter.com/O6ErmaFtiw
— Dana Heinze (@RealDanaHeinze) March 19, 2019
• The three free agents the Steelers just signed at their positions of need -- Donte Moncrief, Mark Barron and Steven Nelson -- are at least adequate starters at wide receiver, inside linebacker, and cornerback, respectively. And that's fine. If all three perform to their career norms, with Moncrief having somewhat of a ceiling, the moves made sense.
Two reasons for that:
1. All three are better than who they're replacing. (Obviously not referring to Antonio Brown here, but all the options left in his wake.)
2. The draft doesn't need to be an act of desperation.
I love the latter.
My biggest worry entering this draft was that the Steelers would have to contort all over creation to get one of the two Devins -- inside linebackers Devin White of LSU and Devin Bush of Michigan -- while stuck at the No. 20 overall slot. That's not a position of comfort for Kevin Colbert and/or Mike Tomlin, who've rarely moved up. And my other worry was that, wonderful as they've been at drafting wide receivers, that's precisely how badly they've fared at corner.
Don't misunderstand. Those are still the positions I'd target. But the burden isn't such that, if a generational find falls to them at some other position, they'd be forced to pass.
• Life after football is tough. Ask any former player. A career ends so quickly, and everything they'd strived to achieve in life is gone in a snap.
But some definitely handle it better than others.
When some never-was backup running back tries to get people to remember that he ever existed by accusing the franchise quarterback of deliberately fumbling the ball a decade ago, or a once-terrific player turned novice network analyst is slamming the same player to try to hop onto the same moving narrative ... that stuff sickens me almost as much as people taking either of them seriously.
Never, never, never has it been more obvious that this concept of broader drama related to the Steelers is a steaming locomotive on runaway tracks that never touched the ground.
There used to be two clowns. Then there was one. Now there are none. But when a topic sizzles like this one, it's not easy for anyone to let it go, even after it's clearly expired.
• There are countless reasons why Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania fandom has shifted so dramatically toward professional sports over colleges, but the region's basketball programs sure aren't helping: This year marks the first time since 2000 that none of Pitt, Duquesne, Robert Morris, Penn State or West Virginia qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
• The Pirates are desperately discounting sales for the home opener, offering $25 tickets and even waiving fees. They seem to be selling OK, too, from my glance yesterday, with most of the lower level gone.
Can't say I blame them. The paid crowd of 30,186 for the 2018 home opener was the greatest public embarrassment of the Bob Nutting era, and I'm stunned to this day they didn't just give the remaining tickets away to avoid the sight of 7,000 empty seats in Major League Baseball's smallest stadium. This time, with the game against the Cardinals being televised nationally by ESPN, they'll do anything and everything to fill it up.
• Spring training means next to nothing, part 1 billion: The Pirates had sent powerful suggestions as early as January, including publicly, that Jung Ho Kang would be their starting third baseman and Erik Gonzalez would be their starting shortstop. Yesterday, they announced exactly that, and nothing in Neal Huntington's remarks hinted in the slightest that anyone's spring was influential.
I'm not disputing the choices, mind you, since Kang and Gonzalez achieved nothing more than beating out two mediocre-at-best players in Colin Moran and Kevin Newman. Rather, I'm pointing out that these spring battles are seldom anything of the sort. They're staged competitions with predetermined outcomes.
• One of Huntington's remarks: “Not an easy decision. All four guys, in their own way, had legitimate claims to become the regular."
See, this kind of stuff needs to stop. Don't insult people. Kang's the only one of the four with starting pedigree, and even he hasn't played ball regularly in a couple years. Not one of the other three had or has any legitimate claim to anything other than the front office's faith.
• Want a positive regarding the Pirates?
I'm pumped to see Jameson Taillon's next level. And after our talks in Bradenton this spring, I'm convinced he's got that coming. He's an elite physical talent as a pitcher with an equal mind for the game and, maybe just as important, an equal passion to keep learning.
He'll take the mound in Cincinnati only nine days from now.
Crazy, right?