This story of this game, it seemed obvious, would focus on the young guy guarding the Boston net.
Would the 23-year-old making his first start in the NHL find a way to stifle the Penguins, who had won their previous six games while outscoring their opponents, 25-9?
Or would the school of sharks masquerading as the Penguins' top-six forwards treat him like a 185-pound chunk of chum, as they have done with more than a few goaltenders over the years?
How Dan Vladar fared -- regardless of whether he turned up in Vezina Trophy conversations the following morning or was looking for a new line of work then -- had the potential to be really compelling stuff.
But then, hockey happened.
Oh, Vladar had s significant impact on the Bruins' 2-1 victory at PPG Paints Arena Tuesday night -- he made a highly favorable first impression, stopping 34 of 35 shots and earning recognition as the game's No. 1 star -- but his work was largely overshadowed by all that transpired over the course of the evening.
Like when the Penguins -- already missing third-line center Teddy Blueger because of an unspecified upper-body injury -- lost Evgeni Malkin early in the first period, after he absorbed a hit from Bruins defenseman Jarred Tinordi, a former Penguins farmhand.
Malkin returned briefly for a power play, then left the game for good. Mike Sullivan said Malkin, who appeared to hurt a leg when he was hit by Tinordi, is being evaluated for an unspecified lower-body injury.
Tinordi, coincidentally enough, had delivered a cross-check to Blueger late in the Penguins' 4-1 victory Monday that might be the source of Blueger's injury, since it came on his final shift of the game.
And while Brandon Tanev wasn't seeking vengeance for Blueger when he checked Tinordi into the boards in the neutral zone with just over seven minutes to go in the second period, he did knock Tinordi out of the game.
Took himself out of it, too, since Tanev was assessed a five-minute boarding major and game misconduct for that hit, punishment that was upheld following a video review.
"I don't think there was any intent (to injure)," Sidney Crosby said. "I thought he hit him clean. He hit him timely, as far as the puck being there. (Tinordi) did go in(to the boards) awkwardly, so you never like to see that, but I didn't think it warranted a five-minute (penalty)."
While the Penguins were predictably displeased with the ruling -- Tanev looked to be genuinely stunned at being ejected -- the reality is that NHL Rule 41.1 can be interpreted to justify pretty much any call (or non-call) that comes after a player has gone into the boards upon being hit.
It reads, in part:
"A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player who checks or pushes a defenseless opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to hit or impact the boards violently or dangerously. The severity of the penalty, based upon the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee.
"There is an enormous amount of judgment involved in the application of this rule by the Referees. The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize contact. However, in determining whether such contact could have been avoided, the circumstances of the check, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the check or whether the check was unavoidable can be considered. This balance must be considered by the Referees when applying this rule."
Now, judgment calls by officials hardly are unusual in almost any sport, but the lack of specific guidelines in the boarding rule is particularly striking.
"As players, we need some clarity on what's a good hit and what's not," Crosby said. "It's tough to really gauge when you're out there. I know it's fast, but right now, it's really hard to know what is, in fact, clean and what's not."
That's probably because so much of it is in the eye of the beholders. The ones who are wearing stripes and orange armbands.
"There's a lot of latitude there, for the discretion of the referee," Sullivan said. "I think they're trying to err on the side of caution and protect the players, and I think we all would agree that's the right way to go."
That Tanev was penalized at all reflected where Tinordi, who had just shot the puck into the Penguins' zone, was positioned at the time of contact -- about five feet away from the boards.
Had he been farther from them, it would have been a good open-ice hit. Had Tinordi been closer to the boards, it would have been a standard-issue rubout.
As it was, however, he was just far enough from the boards that the hit, which knocked him off his skates, drove him back-first into them.
Tinordi left the game and did not return. Early indications are that he likely will miss the Bruins' next game, Thursday at Buffalo.
Tanev could, in theory, be fined or suspended for the hit, but there seems little chance of the league imposing any additional penalties.
The Bruins did not accuse Tanev of trying to injure Tinordi, and Sullivan suggested the only thing of which Tanev was guilty was delivering a hit.
"He was trying to finish his check," Sullivan said. "(Tinordi) was a long way from the boards. It's unfortunate, how the circumstance developed, but the player was a long way from the boards, on the initial contact."
The immediate impact of Tanev's major was forcing the Penguins to survive five minutes of playing shorthanded without having either of their top two penalty-killers, Blueger and Tanev.
Which they managed to do, limiting Boston to four shots on goal.
"I thought we did a really good job of taking away seams," goalie Casey DeSmith said. "We didn't give up anything through the middle. Just kind of kept them to the perimeter, then got clears when we had to. That was a huge kill for us. Kept us in the game."
Indeed, the the best scoring chance while Tanev's teammates were killing his major belonged to Penguins center Mark Jankowski, who had a breakaway.
"I wasn't sure if their goalie was going to come out," Jankowski said. "He stayed in, so I had the opportunity. I just tried to go quick shot, low blocker (side) and I think it hit his pad or something, and then the post."
That was one of Vladar's better saves -- his best probably came in the first period, when he made a lunging stop on Colton Sceviour with the paddle of his stick -- as the only one of the Penguins' 35 shots that eluded him was when Tanev punched in a Evan Rodrigues rebound from the right side of the crease at 15:22 of the opening period.
That tied the game, 1-1, and it stayed that way until 7:07 of the third, when Trent Frederic came off the Boston bench and took a feed from defenseman Jakub Zboril before throwing a wrist shot through traffic and past DeSmith from above the left circle.
That goal again exposed the Penguins' chronic inability to clear bodies from in front of their net, and thus give their goalies a chance to see the shots they're supposed to stop.
Two of Boston's three goals in this two-game series were scored when otherwise-pedestrian shots eluded Tristan Jarry or DeSmith because he was screened by a Bruin.
"There was like a double-screen (when Frederic scored)," DeSmith said. "I was looking around the short side of it, and he shot far side. I saw the release, so I knew it was going over there. I obviously slid over, but it didn't hit me."
The Penguins' efforts to manufacture a tying goal were hindered by having just 10 forwards available, on a night when Jankowski had been bumped to the third like to replace Blueger and Sam Lafferty had been plugged into Jankowski's spot on the fourth line.
Consequently, Crosby's line, which has Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust on the wings, was the only one to remain intact the entire game.
Sullivan and his staff deployed a variety of forward combinations, in an effort to coax maximum mileage out of a limited group.
"We're going to do the best we can, with what we have," he said. "That's what we did tonight. We had a short bench for quite a long time."
Just how short was evident during the final shift of the game, when DeSmith had been replaced by an extra attacker and the Penguins had four forwards -- Rodrigues, Lafferty, Jankowski and Anthony Angello -- who have combined for five goals in 67 man-games this season on the ice.
But whatever the Penguins were missing in continuity and talent on this night, they made up for with grit. That didn't pick up any points in the standings, but did earn some respect.
"I thought the players played extremely hard tonight," Sullivan said. "That was a real competitive game. It was a physical game, on both sides. I thought our guys competed extremely hard."
Their performance was not without flaws, but their commitment and refusal to fold bodes for their chances of putting together another winning streak in the near future.
"There was a lot of adversity, a lot of things that happened," DeSmith said. "Losing some guys and things like that. Everybody knows we battled hard and everybody's staying positive. We've been on such a good run that we're not going to let this affect us."
Especially if they find a way to keep all 20 guys in their lineup around for the entire game.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• The Penguins short-circuited an early power play of their own in each of the first two periods by taking a penalty while they had the man-advantage. The latter of those was for having too many men on the ice.
• Every Penguins defenseman was credited with at least one blocked shot, but Charlie McAvoy and Steven Kampfer were the only Boston defensemen to record one.
• Rust, Guentzel, Tanev and Malkin are the only Penguins players to appear in all 29 of their games this season.
• Malkin had a No. 77 sticker on his helmet in memory of Timur Faizutdinov, a 19-year-old Russian defenseman and captain of Dynamo St. Petersburg who died after suffering a head injury during a game last week.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Dan Vladar, Bruins
2. Trent Frederic, Bruins
3. Casey DeSmith, Penguins
THE INJURIES
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer term" with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained Feb. 23.
• Center Teddy Blueger is out "longer term" with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 15.
• Defenseman John Marino is on injured-reserve, retroactive to March 9, because of an unspecified upper-body injury and is listed as day-to-day.
• 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-Mark Jankowski-Brandon Tanev
Colton Sceviour-Sam Lafferty-Anthony Angello
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-Chad Ruhwedel
And for Bruce Cassidy's Bruins:
Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak
Jake DeBrusk-David Krejci-Craig Smith
Nick Ritchie-Charlie Coyle-Oskar Steen
Trent Frederic-Sean Kuraly-Karson Kuhlman
Matt Grzelcyk-Charlie McAvoy
Jakub Zboril-Connor Clifton
Jarred Tinordi-Steven Kampfer
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to be off Wednesday and will travel to New Jersey for games against the Devils Thursday and Saturday.
THE CONTENT
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