Not to be that guy, but ... nah, not yet.
Sure, the Penguins shed that stupid, senseless six-game slide by outscoring the Senators, 7-3, on this sigh-of-relief Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena. And no one should complain about the outcome in the slightest.
Nor did they.
"I thought we played hard, and I thought we played together," Bryan Rust would fairly assess after his hat trick stole the headline. "In a lot of instances, we were playing as a five-man unit and playing in their faces."
In a lot. But far from all.
I'll defer to Dave Molinari in delving into all that the home team didn't do well, other than to add that enough lingered to cast doubts as to whether they were more responsible for this score, or if it was Belleville's best from up north.
That said, there was definitely one player who got it. Who grasped and put into motion precisely the way the Penguins need to perform to get back to where they were through Christmas.
And oh, yeah, who'd whiled away most of his winter way up in St. Paul:
My goodness, Jason Zucker was outstanding.
To such a degree, actually, that I'm first showing you his goal -- the Penguins' fifth, 36 seconds into the third period and a relatively meaningless one aside from registering Sidney Crosby's 800th assist -- just to get it out of the way. And while I'm on the formalities, he'd also wind up with two assists of his own, three shots and, for the analytically inclined, an exemplary 60.0 Corsi For percentage at five-on-five, second among regularly used forwards only to the captain's 62.96.
Again, outstanding.
But I felt that way well before the goal, beginning with this:
Wonderful as it was to witness John Marino whipping home a wrister in his return from that frightening fractured cheekbone in Florida, none of it happens without Zucker showing serious smarts to set it up.
It was near the end of the game's opening shift, and his linemates, Crosby and Conor Sheary, had already gotten off. So Zucker, with possession outside the Ottawa blue line, decided not to relinquish it and instead shoved the puck toward Craig Anderson's blocker side.
With a purpose, it turns out.
"I knew our lines were changing, but I wanted to keep the pressure on him," Zucker told me, referring to Anderson. "And I knew that if I'd keep it to that side, at least I was gonna get some help quicker than going far side. So that was the decision I made. I wanted to make sure that Geno and those guys had a chance to get on and try to make a play."
Dude.
So Anderson, as he's done throughout his career, punches the puck into the left corner. Zucker outraces Ottawa center Artem Anisimov to the puck, whirls, battles on the boards and taps it to Evgeni Malkin, who feeds Marino.
But wait: Zucker then hustles so hard to the bench to complete the change that he becomes that rare player to record an assist without an accompanying plus. Because, hey, he was no longer on the rink when the goal was scored.
I've got more, but brew up some caffeine first, because these are boring:
That's Zucker initially backing off the Senators in the neutral zone, out of respect for his speed, then dishing to Sheary, who's coming that much faster. But rather than hoping Sheary manufactures something, he swoops in from behind for support -- exactly what Mike Sullivan had been passionately emphasizing in practice the previous day -- to carry the play deeper into the Ottawa zone.
"We just need to stay tighter, make sure we're on the puck and helping each other," Zucker would explain of that sequence, which I was surprised he recalled at all.
He recalled this next one, too, which was nice because it might've been my favorite:
Sheary's covering at the right point for a pinching Marcus Pettersson, and he takes a gamble by charging forward once Ottawa gains possession. But Zucker's immediate retreat upon that change of possession assures that once Sheary gets a piece of the Senators' Jayce Hawryluk, Zucker's right there to reclaim and, after a violent skate stop, he even keeps it in the zone.
"That's just coming high to cover," Zucker would explain with a shrug.
OK, so the next one's so boring I didn't even bother bringing it up:
Told you.
But you know who isn't bored by seeing a forward position himself responsibly to prevent easy zone entries?
Right ...
"I thought Jason was real good tonight, and I think he's been real good lately," Sullivan replied to my general question about his showing with the detailed work like what's above. "I think he has a better understanding of how to use and leverage his speed. I think he's starting to get some chemistry with Sid. ... And I think he's just getting more comfortable with how we're trying to play, with our overall game."
Comfortable?
Heck, he's doing it better than most of the players who'd been doing it all along. And I'm not just saying that because he's popped six goals in the 11 games since coming from the Wild.
"Honestly, there are things I'm still learning, things I'm doing wrong out there that I'm trying to fix through watching video of some of the plays like the ones you mentioned," Zucker told me. "But overall, I think it's good that we're gaining some chemistry as a line. It's a learning curve, a building process, not only for our line but the entire team."
A learning curve, the man says ...
... so just imagine when he finally stops, uh, falling flat on his face and figures out how do things right.
• Hey, how about Marino and Brian Dumoulin taking all of 99 seconds to remind us all how much they were missed?
Taylor Haase has their night, but I had one quick question for Dumoulin, who's more of a leader in this locker room than maybe most realize:
• Sometimes just the feel of scoring, regardless of the circumstance, can help a player relax. Particularly one who's used to scoring. Rust had two goals in 13 games before topping that total in this one. Malkin had a solitary assist in the three games in California but four points in this one. Crosby was blanked completely out there and had a goal and two assists in this one.
Almost as significant, Patrick Marleau, making his Pittsburgh debut, seemed to click with Malkin and Rust.
"It was great," he said. "It was fun being in this building, having the fans cheering. It was great."
• No part of me ever sees that man in anything but teal.
• If Sullivan's waiting/hoping for Murray to take a stranglehold on the starting goaltending job, he'll have to keep waiting/hoping. This wasn't it.
Not that it would've mattered much either way, but the Senators beat him three times on 26 shots, including a long-range, unscreened wrister by Connor Brown that drew an audible groan and briefly cut the lead to 5-3. On a night when the opposition is limited to nine high-danger chances -- the Brown shot wasn't even counted in that -- it'd be welcome not to concede three goals.
Expect Tristan Jarry to start Thursday in Buffalo, then another weekend split, with no resolution in sight.
• Highlight of the night happened in the seats, when the remaining fans from the original capacity crowd of 18,455 stood, roared and chanted -- "Let's go Pens!" -- through the entire final minute. It was quite the scene, one I definitely hadn't seen coming.
Pittsburgh's paying hockey fans take a fair amount of heat, but that's rising up. Well done.
• Jake Guentzel out of his sling?
Applaud that all the louder.
• Crosby's 800th assist came and went with little more than a warm ovation, a small wave and afterward from him, "It's a nice number." That's how it is with the greatest ones. These aren't milestones as much as they are mileposts.
Never, ever to be taken for granted:
• The Senators are light-years away from contending, but there's a stick-tap to be offered for being 23-32-12 with that roster, while the Red Wings are 23 points behind them with a roster pretty much anyone would prefer to have.
• There's something to be spoken for availability: With Brandon Tanev and Dominik Simon each missing his first game of the season, that halved the number of Penguins to have participated in all of them, now down to just Pettersson and Teddy Blueger. When additionally weighing that Pettersson participated in 84 regular-season games in 2018-19 -- not a misprint, as he'd played two additional games with the Ducks before the trade -- that's a welcome presence for a pretty wiry guy who's taken more abuse than anyone.
No, seriously, Pettersson's now been hit 246 times, which is 86 times more than Tanev's 160, the next-highest such figure on the team. On this night alone, he was hit seven times, more than double anyone else on either side.
"I don't really like that number," Pettersson deadpanned after the game when I brought this up. "Maybe I should start getting out of the way."
• Sabres are next, after which it's 15 of 17 within the Metro. Won't be many more like this.
PHOTO GALLERY
Penguins vs. Senators, March 3, 2020, PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY