PHILADELPHIA -- "I thought we played a great game."
That was Brandon Tanev's authentic, if semi-amusing assessment of the Penguins' 54th season opener, a 6-3 smackdown by the Flyers on this Wednesday night inside a weirdly empty Wells Fargo Center.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure he meant it, as he'd proceed from that sentence to say, "I thought we had a lot of great chances. We had some momentum at times. I think there were a couple breakdowns, but I think as the group grows and we get better day by day, we'll eliminate those things from our game. We’re looking forward to the next one and hoping to learn from this one."
Hm.
Nah.
Sorry, but there's no great to be culled from six goals conceded amid 10 high-danger chances and three clean breaks, as well as 10 official giveaways and a 42% success rate on faceoffs.
Heck, that's barely a good.
But, in giving Tanev the benefit of the doubt since he was part of the Penguins' best-by-a-mile forward line and pinged this beauty past Carter Hart for a 3-3 tie 3:01 into the third period ...
... maybe he did have a point beyond his goal and assist.
From my own viewpoint, near ice level, I was struck -- no, surprised, actually -- by the Penguins' speed, energy and aggressiveness throughout. They pressured all over the rink, they forced as many mistakes as they made, and they regularly raced across the Philadelphia blue line with authority in displaying a neutral-zone speed not seen since ... I don't remember.
Now, maybe because it's been so long since I'd seen live hockey, but I don't think so.
Mike Sullivan, who wouldn't sugar-coat a sugar cookie, didn't seem terribly put off by this, either.
"I thought there was a lot to like about our game tonight," he observed. "I thought we had periods of the game where we carried the play. The types of breakdowns that we had ... we’ve got to do a better job minimizing some of those catastrophic-type scenarios. But we generated some pretty high-quality chances ourselves. I don’t think the score of the game is an indication of how it was played."
The numbers have my back on this, too: The Penguins outshot the Flyers, 34-25, including 30-19 at even-strength. Getting advanced, they ran up a 56.6% Corsi For rating at five-on-five, illustrating a pronounced advantage in possession.
Why'd they lose as they did?
I'll get to that in a bit, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't share the single dominant impression this game left on me: This isn't last season's team.
And I'm saying that even before the installation of Kasperi Kapanen, who Jim Rutherford told me will be the fastest player on the roster.
Again, this outcome isn't great or good or anything of the kind. But the input toward that outcome was plenty encouraging.
• Don't trail the doom and gloom. The Avalanche, the broadly accepted favorite to raise the Stanley Cup this year, lost by three goals later in the evening. Guess they're done, too.
• Mike Matheson's low-hanging fruit and little more, at least for now.
We're all watching him closely because he's the main offseason addition, and he came at a huge cost that included Patric Hornqvist, so his being on the ice for three of Philadelphia's first four goals makes for a heck of a how-do-you-do.
To be sure, he was awful on the first ...
... doing absolutely nothing to stop James van Riemsdyk from tipping home this power-play point shot. It should be logged as an eternal Exhibit A for how a defenseman can't care for the crease area.
But the second came off a defensive-zone turnover by Jared McCann -- who just needed to flip the puck forward but instead tried to skate out -- that swung the attack back Matheson's way, and the third came when Matheson's partner, John Marino stumbled to get beaten on a routine two-on-two. All Matheson did there was to try to recover on the man Marino lost. Which he did, by the way, and the goal occurred only because Jake Guentzel was late on a backcheck.
Now, that's not to suggest Matheson was acceptable. He wasn't. He was on the ice for five of the seven high-danger chances the Penguins allowed at five-on-five.
But it is to suggest that, given his superior skating and offensive skill, both also on display here, he's worth the work that'll be put into making something of all that raw material.
I asked Sullivan afterward about Matheson's showing, prefacing that I wasn't asking to bury the guy after a single game. I really just wanted to hear his evaluation.
"He skates really well," Sullivan began. "I think that’s evident when you look at his mobility. His ability to get back to pucks and his gaps because he’s such a mobile guy. He’s trying to get used to the type of game we play. We’re going to work with him here, through this beginning part of the season, to try to help him simplify his game in certain areas of the rink. To Mike’s defense, he’s still trying to learn some of the concepts and the way we’re trying to play here."
After a brief pause, Sullivan added, "I don’t think Mike got the benefit of any puck luck tonight as well. That certainly didn’t help him."
• I had far less use for Cody Ceci. Can't see what he brings in any category.
• Potential solution: Reunite Marino and Marcus Pettersson as a second pair, then twin up Matheson with Chad Ruhwedel, Mr. Stable/Simple himself.
Anyone care to second the motion?
• Hockey's not all the way back until Sidney Crosby does something super-spectacular in the hand-eye category ...
... which is to say, hockey's back.
• Sid's line was ... OK. Shots were 10-4 in the Penguins' favor while they were out there, but there wasn't much else to cite. Jake Guentzel was so out of it -- he registered one 21-foot wrist shot and little else -- that he was most noticeable when crashing hard into the left corner, shoulder-first, and getting up slowly, as if to remind why this might still take a while. And Evan Rodrigues was playing back so far he might as well have been a third defenseman.
• Evgeni Malkin picked up where he left off in the playoffs, putting up four shots but none with any real oomph, and he'd occasionally lapse into stuff like this inspirational rush in the third period:
Was that supposed to be a shot?
Whatever it was, the Flyers' Nicolas Aube-Kubel won't win a Selke for his defensive effort to stop it.
• Other than his giveaway, McCann was as dynamic as any forward. Same goes for Tanev and Mark Jankowski, the rest of a third line that was miles above the others, but I single out McCann because he might be a better fit for that first line than Rodrigues until Kapanen returns. Rodrigues is playing like he's waiting for Sid's autograph at the end of each shift.
• No issue here with Tristan Jarry. He might've given up a couple goals "he'd want back," as Sullivan pointed out, but he was so sturdy early that the Penguins seemed to gain their confidence from him. That's how it's got to work.
Matheson screened him on the Flyers' first goal as noted, then Brian Dumoulin matched that precisely on the second. The third was on a partial break, and the final three were all point-blank shots from the beach into the ocean.
Try giving the kid a hand before we pass judgment.
• He needs to be right back in there Friday.
• The first power-play work since Todd Reirden's arrival was promising in spurts. There was more movement, less predictability -- Rust migrating to the right point? -- and overall effectiveness.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
The Flyers' setup at Wells Fargo Center before warmups Wednesday afternoon.
• I don't know if this'll get me tried at the Hague, but the Flyers did a terrific job putting on this event. Really did.
That sounds like faint praise with no fans allowed, and it's not. This was the first indoor event I've covered amid the pandemic, and the safety and security precautions were on par with the NFL and Major League Baseball -- never to presumed with the NHL -- and the atmosphere was somehow made ... fun, if anyone can believe it.
They had Gritty, of course, doing his -- its? -- thing on the second concourse but in view of cameras. Lauren Hart, the best anthem singer in sports, knocked 'em dead from a raised podium. The artificial crowd noise wasn't over the top, even injecting a canned "Let's Go Flyers!" once in a while. The music was every bit as loud as if there were 19,000 ... uh, humans jammed in here. The goal horn was that much louder. And most impressive to me, the lighting of the place reduced the impact of the empty seats and kept all the focus on the ice.
There was so much going on, actually, I couldn't even hear both teams yelling at Wes McCauley.
"It feels pretty similar to the bubble," Jankowski said, referring to his experience in Edmonton as a member of the Flames. "Obviously no fans, but they have the crowd noise and all that Jumbotron stuff going on. I think when you're playing the game, you don’t really notice that stuff too much. You’re just out there, grinding and competing. Maybe when you’re sitting on the bench or in between TV timeouts, you kind of notice it."
Still, it wasn't the same. Crosby scoring in this place without being booed or subjected to vulgar chants ... let's just say history was made.
• There's another one Friday. And 54 after that. Breathe.