Kovacevic: What matters more to Penguins than defending like this?

Kasperi Kapanen could shoot a beer can off the crossbar from the far blue line.

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are ... who they are.

So, on the surface, there can't conceivably be the slightest surprise over how the highlights will be spliced from the Penguins' 5-1 rout of the Rangers on this Sunday night at PPG Paints Arena. Not when Kapanen converts a breakaway with the ease of an uncontested dunk. Not when Crosby goes top-shelf while his hands are forced together like holding a baseball bat. Not when the suddenly resurgent Malkin owns all 200 feet of ice on every shift.

Don't take my word for it:

Nice, huh?

There's no highlight like a hockey highlight, I've always maintained, and there's handful of gold in that package.

At the same time, I'm here to attest -- and I'll bet that the 2,800 on hand would support me -- that this one was decided away from the conventional camera angles. And that this game, in general, wasn't remotely entertaining for seemingly interminable stretches. And that, if they're all being honest, if they hadn't missed out on seeing their favorite sport in person for the first time in forever, they might've been reaching for the car keys midway through the third period.

All of which, to be clear, should be considered that much sweeter.

Because this was a superlative defensive performance, the best I'd covered all winter. And if there's anything that means more to this franchise plowing forward through this already unsettling winter, I'm unfamiliar with it.

"Yeah, we were really, really solid, especially in the second and third periods," Casey DeSmith replied when I asked what he'd just witnessed in front of him while making 23 saves, only five of which came on high-danger chances. "We held them to the outside. We were so good on our breakouts, getting the puck out, getting the puck in deep."

He smiled slightly.

"It must've been a pretty frustrating game for them because we were so good defensively and played really smart tonight."

Imagine that. The team that entered the evening with the NHL's fifth-worst ratio of exchanging high-danger chances clamped down to the extent that the goaltender could speculate that the other guys would be exasperated.

Which, by the way, the Rangers were.

"Give them credit," New York defenseman Jacob Trouba remarked of the Penguins. "They got a lead, and they played a pretty tight game defensively and shut it down and didn’t give up a ton of chances.”

Hm. It's almost as if this erratic assembly of speed, skill and what-the-hell wasn't going to have a chance at morphing into anything meaningful until the back end would get back together.

But hey, that was kind of the undercurrent of this uplifting weekend, wasn't it?

Think about it: Brian Dumoulin returns, shows trademark poise, then rubs off as much as ever on the mercurial Kris Letang, and the first pairing once again comes with a shutdown component. That allows for the reunification of John Marino and Marcus Pettersson, both of whom have had their maddening stretches -- Pettersson most recently with a bizarre three-penalty debacle Saturday against the Flyers -- and just like that, there's some stability. Same goes for Cody Ceci and Mike Matheson, the opening-night-then-not-again-till-now third pairing. 

It's as if Dumoulin was the reverse Jenga piece.

None of this is that simple, of course. Defense in the Mike Sullivan system requires dogged pursuit of possession at all points on the rink, and that in turn requires all hands on deck. Defensemen and forwards alike, scorers and pluggers alike.

Which is why, I think, it was symbolic that the following were the Penguins' top five performers on the possession front in this one, applying Corsi For percentage at five-on-five:

• Ceci: 57.14%
• Malkin: 57.14%
• Brandon Tanev: 55.56%
• Zach Aston-Reese: 55.00%
• Dumoulin: 52.17%

To repeat: Nice, huh?

Don't sweat the advanced analytics, by the way. All those figures represent is the amount of time an individual's on the rink when his team takes a shot attempt versus when the opponent does the same. And for what it's worth, once this game was done, those five and a couple others would've been the ones passing most eye tests, too. It's a great gauge.

Now, look again at those top two.

Malkin was outstanding beyond the goal and assist he contributed. I'll have more on him down at the bottom of this column.

But Ceci?

You know, this is getting real.

No, he's no threat to climb the depth chart. But, if anything, the more I observe of Todd Reirden's usage of Ceci and Matheson -- zero defensive-zone shift starts -- the more I'm liking it. Ceci's gone from the pressure of being a first-round pick in Ottawa, to feeling much of the same weight in Toronto, to coming here and simply playing hockey.

Hockey like this:

This caught my eye early in the second period. Ceci's already gotten one puck through traffic on this shift. Now, it's being pushed back out to him by Evan Rodrigues. And, in lieu of simply firing it right back, Ceci glides backward away from the Rangers' Pavel Buchnevich, clearly watching and waiting for Mark Jankowski to slide behind the New York net to open up another option, then connects tape-to-tape.

Nothing comes of it, but that's no fluke. That's first-round stuff.

So's this:

Bear in mind, Matheson's ill-advised pinch/lean early in the game handed the Rangers a two-on-one and the game's icebreaking goal. And that'll happen. Matheson's ... different. He'll need maintenance more than he'll need a partner.

Above, Matheson takes another characteristically bold stab at cutting off a New York rush through the neutral zone. And when this one doesn't work, either, Ceci doesn't just hang back or stay on the opposite side. He senses his own opportunity to take the puck, sees that he's got some forward help back, goes and takes possession, then swings the play back the other way in the same motion.

If these are to be the Penguins' starting six defensemen, it'll never click without Ceci doing precisely what he's doing.

With help from everyone else.

• Malkin and Kapanen clicking?

Yes, please. But don't underestimate the role Jared McCann's grabbed by the (blue) collar. The other two will create off the rush, but it's McCann who'll sustain the attack if it's to work over the long term. If McCann's out with whatever upper-body injury he sustained late in the second period, it'll hurt.

• There's no excuse for the Penguins to not sweep this set, meaning winning again Tuesday. Without Artemi Panarin, who's on personal leave, the Rangers barely threaten beyond their No. 1 line of Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere and Buchnevich. And even of those three, it was Zibanejad head-and-shoulders up. But Reirden needs to do a better job of matching the Letang-Dumoulin pairing against this trio than he did in this game.

• Alexandar Georgiev's poor showing -- three goals on six shots before getting yanked -- underscores a point I'd been making since before the season began: The East's goaltending isn't that great. Or even good. Beyond Boston's tandem of Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak, as I see it, it's wide open for second-best. Which is why Tristan Jarry, as I wrote then and will echo now, will be such a huge factor.

• Right back to Jarry for the next game. Zero hesitation.

• The Rangers need to stick by Keith Kinkaid, who stopped 16 of 18 shots and has a history of faring well against the Penguins. Maybe David Quinn didn't look that up on the flight here.

• When Quinn made his goaltending change, he additionally burned his timeout. That's a first for me.

• Three goals on six shots is, of course, exactly what the Penguins pulled off against the Flyers' Brian Elliott last Thursday before ... oh, you know. But stop pouting over it. If that game doesn't happen the way it did, this one doesn't happen the way it did. And this one, if it comes with any resonance, will mean more toward the team's commitment.

• Pretty as Sid's goal was, it also was his second at five-on-five all season. Crazy.

• Courtesy of the unrivaled franchise historian Bob Grove, this marked the 100th occasion on which Sid and Geno scored in the same game. The Penguins' record in those games: 88-9-3.

• Anyone buying ZAR stock yet?

Five goals in 13 games?

Hello?

• I've criticized Sullivan in the past for not giving Sam Lafferty, a healthy scratch on this night, enough of a chance. Not anymore. Lafferty's had a chance, and he's had clear direction as to what's expected of him. He blew this. And it wasn't just the drop pass the other night. He's consistently performed as if he was on something other than a fourth line, and I don't say that in a good way.

• Wonderful to see humans back in the building. And around the building. And the Sax Man out on Centre Avenue. Nicer still to see the Penguins open up the whole upper bowl to seating, now that they're able to fully staff with ushers. Safely, I might add. Masks are everywhere.

• Small example of the human effect on the actual hockey: The home team came out as dead as usual, but Bryan Rust leapfrogging one of the Rangers to negate an icing brought a loud, stirring roar from the crowd, after which it seemed everyone else woke up, too.

• Still so many coming back for the first time:

• I did promise I'd get to Malkin's effort: