Mike Sullivan has spent most of his life in this game.
If he offers an opinion, it likely is rooted in his decades of experience as a player and coach at every level of the sport.
So when, in assessing the Penguins' play during the final 20 minutes of their 4-2 victory against the Rangers Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, Sullivan said that "I don't think we had our best period in the third," it reflected the countless hours he has spent playing, watching and studying hockey.
Of course, there was at least one other way Sullivan could have reached the same conclusion.
He could have checked the shot clock.
The one that showed the Penguins and Rangers combined for 16 shots -- only one of which was generated by Sullivan's team -- in the period.
Now, that one shot was pretty important -- it's the one Sidney Crosby threw into an empty net with 32.7 seconds left in regulation to give the Penguins their margin of victory -- but it might not have mattered much if Tristan Jarry hadn't been able to stop 14 of the 15 New York threw at him during the third.
The Rangers scored on their second shot of the period, a Ryan Strome wrist shot from inside the left circle that changed direction after hitting the left skate of Penguins defenseman John Marino, but that was all that made it past Jarry.
And he saved his best work for the closing minutes of play, after New York coach David Quinn had replaced goalie Keith Kinkaid with an extra attacker.
"The highest quality (chances) were in the last 2 1/2 minutes, when they pulled the goalie," Sullivan said. "They pressed hard. I think they got four pretty high-quality chances."
Pavel Buchnevich had the best two within a span of about 20 seconds, but neither produced the goal that would have lifted the Rangers into a 3-3 tie.
Jarry denied him from the right side of the crease with 2:35 to go, then got his right pad on a shot from in front of the net with 2:15 remaining.
"Game-saving saves," Teddy Blueger said. "Won the game for us. Those are huge. There's no other way to put it."
They were the kind of quality stop that Jarry's goaltending partner, Casey DeSmith, hadn't been forced to make two days earlier, when the Penguins also had taken a 3-1 lead in what became a 5-1 victory.
In that game, the Penguins all but hermitically sealed the net behind DeSmith, limiting New York to a total of 13 shots during the final two periods.
That stifling defensive performance figured to be a template for how the Penguins would try to protect leads in the games that followed -- "I thought we had a great blueprint on how to finish games out," Sullivan said -- but any possibility of them replicating that effort disappeared after Strome's goal, which came seven seconds after Crosby was penalized for holding.
"I don't think we were back on our heels until, really, they got that goal," Crosby said. "Then they started to really bring everybody, pinch, and they got some turnovers and some good plays and (Jarry) made some saves. Ideally, we don't want to make him work as hard as he had to to preserve that one."
Actually, the way the game began, it wasn't clear Jarry would have to work much at all. Even though Jack Johnson gave New York a 1-0 lead when his shot from the left point deflected off Marino and past Jarry at 9:16 of the first, the Penguins controlled the opening period.
Jake Guentzel pulled them even at 18:54, and the Penguins' momentum carried through the intermission, as Blueger cut through the left circle and went to the net before slipping a backhander past Kinkaid at 2:40 of the second period while Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson was serving a tripping minor.
"I tried to slide it underneath him," Blueger said. "As I passed by, I saw it was squeaking in, across the goal line."
That put the Penguins in front to stay, and Kasperi Kapanen seemed to purge any lingering suspense about the outcome when he capped a sequence of exceptional puck control and passing -- "One of the best shifts we had all year," Sullivan said. "It was a clinic on puck-possession and offensive-zone play" -- by throwing a shot over Kinkaid's glove at 19:40.
But the expected storyline was rewritten in the third, when New York dictated the pace of play much of the time. Especially after Strome got the Rangers within a goal.
"We just have to be a little better with the lead, not be so much on our heels," Guentzel said. "Just unbelievable saves by Tristan there to keep that one-goal lead."
The victory was the Penguins' third in a row and boosted them into third place in the East Division. They'll have a chance to extend their winning streak and climb in the division standings when they visit Buffalo for two games against the Sabres, who have become the plankton of the NHL's food chain this season.
But regardless of how they fare in those games, the Penguins seem to grasp that they can't make a habit of letting games get out of their control, the way the one against the Rangers did during the final period.
"That's something we need to work on," Guentzel said. "We don't want to be in that situation again."
But if they are -- and chances are, they will be at some point -- the Penguins can only hope Jarry again will be able to cover up for any letdowns or lapses that happen in front of him.
"We've won a bunch of different ways this year," Blueger said. "Sometimes, it's going to go like that, where the other team is going to come at us hard and it's going to be a little bit scrambly. Someone has to step up, and (Jarry) did that tonight."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• New York outhit the Penguins, 58-37, and won 35 of 64 faceoffs. Blueger, who went 9-5 on draws, was the only Penguin to finish with a winning record.
• Johnson's goal was his first point of the season and his first goal in 33 games. He had last scored on Jan. 19, 2020 against Boston, while playing for the Penguins.
• New York is 0-8 this season when trailing after two periods.
• Sullivan's decision to dress Colton Sceviour, who cleared waivers at midday, rather than Sam Lafferty suggests that Lafferty is deep in Sullivan's doghouse at the moment. Sceviour played a game-low 7:08, but still managed to record two hits and block two shots.
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola, who had missed the previous 20 games because of an unspecified injury, was activated a couple of hours before the game, but did not play.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Sidney Crosby, Penguins
2. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
3. Teddy Blueger, Penguins
THE INJURIES
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer-term" with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained Feb. 23.
• Defenseman Mark Friedman is day-to-day with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 4.
• Forward Jared McCann is day-to-day an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 7.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Evan Rodrigues-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Colton Sceviour-Mark Jankowski-Anthony Angello
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
And for Quinn's Rangers:
Alexis Lafreniere-Mika Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich
Chris Kreider-Ryan Strome-Kaapo Kakko
Kevin Rooney-Filip Chytil-Julien Gauthier
Colin Blackwell-Brett Howden-Phillip Di Giuseppe
Ryan Lindgren-Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller-Jacob Trouba
Jack Johnson-Brendan Smith
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex Wednesday at noon before traveling to Buffalo for games against the Sabres Thursday and Saturday.
THE CONTENT
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