“You have to expect it. You just have to."
Jason Zucker shook his head slightly as we spoke, he and I, as if to accentuate the absurdity of his own assessment.
With that, though, he nodded toward his left, where Sidney Crosby was still seated and surrounded by cameras and microphones.
“When you’re playing with someone like that ... "
Yeah. Expect greatness.
Trust us, bud, we’ve witnessed it in these parts for a long, long time.
Because the pass Zucker accepted from his new captain on this Friday night at PPG paints Arena, the one he authoritatively banged behind Carey Price in the Penguins' 4-1 cutdown of the Canadiens, might as well have been Warren Young doing likewise from Mario Lemieux. Or Kevin Stevens from Ron Francis. Or Robert Lang from Jaromir Jagr. Or any number of more recent finishers, of course, from Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.
And as every beneficiary from Scorin' Warren onward can attest, the most common formula toward achieving the uncommon has always been surprisingly routine:
1. Anticipate greatness.
2. React accordingly.
Way back in the fall of 1984, as Young himself has recalled, a babyfaced Mario, 19 years old and barely conversant in English, would scrounge up enough words to encourage him to simply find a space in the attacking zone -- any space -- where he felt he'd have the highest-percentage shot. The defense didn't matter. The traffic in the lanes didn't matter. That was all for Mario to navigate and for Young to trust -- against his own lifelong hockey instincts at times -- that the puck would somehow arrive.
Well, Mr. Zucker, welcome to Pittsburgh:
My goodness.
Seriously, watch Sid's eyes and nothing but. Forget that he's pulling away from Nick Suzuki upon gaining the Montreal blue line or that he waits for the precise angle of Ben Chiarot's skates to separate to slip that puck through.
The eyes are what have it here. Sid's face never once angles away from squaring up with Carey Price because he's selling the shot and selling it to the very end. It isn't until the puck's safely on its way that he even peeks to the right.
"Unbelievable pass. Just incredible," Zucker marveled. "I'm just glad I was able to touch it."
The finish wasn't bad, either, Zucker having to stretch back his left leg for just the right amount of gusto to keep Price from making one of his patented glove gems.
But what stood out from this perspective, on this goal and his other in a terrific overall second game in a Pittsburgh sweater, was that he made himself available for such a pass. Because that's rare air. That's instinct that not everyone's blessed to have.
Think again about that scene above.
No, wait, just watch it from another view:
Now that's what I'm talking about.
Dominik Simon starts the sequence by stealing the puck from the Canadiens' Victor Mete, but even then it's basically Sid vs. un, deux, trois, quatre Montreal players up ice, not counting one of the planet's premier goaltenders as the final obstacle. It looks like nothing. To someone who'd never seen Sid, it'd look like less than nothing.
But observe Zucker's purposeful stride, then his spacing. He's not looking to slide somewhere and present Sid with an easy option to keep possession. He's not gliding or hoping or, worse, presuming it'll go wrong.
Nope. He's looking to score. Right there on that rush.
That's what goal-scorers do. And it's easy to gauge right there how he popped 33 a couple winters ago for the perpetually backpedaling Wild. Not to mention all the other traits that pushed Jim Rutherford to pay up -- maybe overpay -- to trade for him this week.
"I'm just gonna get open," Zucker explained of the rush. "I'm gonna use my speed, skate to push some D back ... I'm looking to get open and make sure the option's there."
Look, this isn't to overhype anyone or anything. He's been here two games, he's scored two goals, and a week ago he was on Minnesota's fourth line. There's time aplenty to see how this unfolds, unfortunately, since Jake Guentzel's still hit-and-miss to return this season.
But since no one's ever that patient in following their favorite sports team, I'll throw in a similar observation about Zucker's second goal, this one putting the Penguins up, 3-1, and restoring a two-goal lead they'd squandered 36 seconds earlier:
Just as pretty in its own right, isn't it?
It's got some similar characteristics, too. A Montreal turnover at center red. Zucker carries into the zone, dishes to Sid, and it looks like the Canadiens have still got it all covered.
But here again, once the superstar's got it, Zucker presumes the best. So he overpowers defenseman Brett Kulak, spin move and all, to bully his way in the straightest line possible to the net. And even though it further appears as if Marcus Pettersson would have an impossible time reaching around Kulak's well-positioned partner, Jeff Petry, to get him the puck, he remains relentless.
"Another great pass," Zucker said of Pettersson.
Yeah, but the pass finds nobody without the belief the whole sequence would amount to something.
Oh, and then there's this:
As Pettersson moved the puck, Zucker's blade was turned to the backhand, but as it got there, last split-second, he flips over to the forehand for that fabulous upward chip. Which, if I'm guessing, is what fooled Price and got him to stray from his cool persona and demonstrably fume afterward, raising his goal stick as if he were about to tomahawk it over the bar.
"That finish was perfect," Pettersson told me. "But what impressed me the most is that, at first, he kind of got tangled up with that D-man and just kept fighting through it. That's what you want to see."
I raised Zucker's sense for space with the author of the other fine pass:
On the Sid-o-meter scale of excitement, from 1 to 10, that's what ... a 16?
• Mike Sullivan's often mentioning that Pettersson's got a higher ceiling offensively than he's shown to date, so I couldn't help but bring up that pass at the coach's postgame.
"I think Marcus is getting more confident with his play with the puck," Sullivan answered. "And I think you see it in plays like that, where you see his patience, his vision. That's what we think he's capable of. He's not just an off-the-glass-and-out guy. He sees the ice well, he's got good instincts, and we feel like he's only going to get better in that aspect of his game. He's still a young kid."
True. Pettersson plays -- and acts -- well beyond his 23 years.
• Feels like this needs to be said: Malkin had no points, one shot, lost two more draws than he won ... and was still so dynamic, shift after shift. It happens.
Sid's line will get the headlines, but the No. 2, including Jared McCann and Bryan Rust both being effective, didn't take any back seat. And that's a hugely positive turn for a team seeking stability on the top six.
• Do we under-appreciate Kris Letang's shot around here?
• It's taken forever for Sullivan to find a fourth line he can trust, but man, this was quite the debut for Andrew Agozzino between Patric Hornqvist and Sam Lafferty, with those three logging 7:43 of even-strength ice time -- an achievement in and of itself compared to the norm -- and a cumulative 71.43 Corsi For percentage that was by far the best on either team.
Some will hold their nose over a $6 million winger deployed on the fourth line, but it's not as if Hornqvist's buried there. Still on the top power play. Still playing a prominent role, if this works out. And it's not as if anyone would want to break up that third line.
• Tristan Jarry's a star. Not an All-Star. A star.
Arguably the best player on either side. And that's saying something, considering all I wrote above and his counterpart at the far end. Price was every bit as good.
But Jarry, he's treading into territory now where it's expected.
"One goal on 35 shots," was Claude Julien's lament outside the Montreal room, to which I followed up wondering if maybe the goaltender had something to do with that:
Not exactly overflowing with praise, huh?
That's how it goes when the NHL coaching fraternity hasn't yet fully processed how good a goaltender is. A lot of it's about the name.
That's coming, too.
• Not joking at all when I ask: Has Jarry had a bad game all season?
Not an average game or a little letdown, but an actual bad game?
• Price stoned the Penguins on three clean breaks among his 24 saves, but other than feisty forward Brendan Gallagher, he was about all anyone on the home side had to fear.
"Our goalie made a ton of great stops," Gallagher would say. "It could've been much worse."
Overall, the Canadiens have lost three in a row, are seven points out of a playoff spot and missing top defenseman Shea Weber.
Feel like I write this every spring, but the NHL just isn't the same without a competitive, if not contending Canadiens. And 1993 was eons ago for a franchise with 24 Cups to its credit.
• On that note, there's nothing like witnessing the GM of the legendary Habs hiding behind a corner on the lower concourse before the game, waiting to scare a couple of familiar faces who’d been approaching. Which he did. Gloriously.
Never change, Marc Bergevin.
• More pucks Sunday. More Original Six. More from the category of struggling iconic franchises. Red Wings.
PHOTO GALLERY
Penguins vs. Canadiens, Feb. 14, 2020, PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY