Cutting to the Cup chase, yes, absolutely, the arrival of Jeff Carter absolutely cements the Penguins' status as a contender. Under two somewhat significant circumstances:
1. Tristan Jarry stays awesome.
2. Everyone gets healthy. And soon.
That's all. Just that.
OK, we all good now? All set for the final 14 games and everything that lies beyond?
Nah, me, neither. At least not in any settled sense.
Look, this has nothing to do with Carter or his cost in the trade completed early Monday morning. If anything, he checks off literally every box on my longstanding wish list for the one acquisition I'd hoped Ron Hextall could pull off before the deadline:
✓ Third-line center
✓ Big, strong, fast
✓ Right-handed shot
✓ Capable on both special teams
✓ Shoot first, think later
✓ Reasonable cost
✓ Championship character
As to the latter, here's what Carter had to say Tuesday after the Penguins' off-ice workout in Cranberry when asked what excited him most about the move: "Having a chance to win. That's the ultimate goal, no matter where you are. The run they're on and the position we're in, it's exciting. I can't wait to get back to the playoffs and make a run at it."
I mean, what's to complain about?
Ideally, Carter wouldn't be 36. He'd be the same twenty-something sniper who was hoisting Cups in L.A. in 2012 and 2014. And no, he wouldn't have eight goals in 40 games on a career-low 6.3 shooting percentage. And no, I wouldn't send out any draft picks from any class, much less the conditional third- and fourth-rounders the Kings will get. And no, I wouldn't add a prorated $2.6 million to this year's cap, much less next year's.
But ideally, I'd also ship Mark Jankowski to the Oilers for Connor McDavid, cap relief, a couple first-rounders and a lifetime supply of Alberta beef to our Downtown steakhouses.
Hextall did quite well.
As he elaborated in his post-deadline session Monday, "Jeff offers a lot. He's got speed. He's a playoff-proven player. He's got a lot of versatility: He can play special teams, five-on-five, he can play center, he can play the wing ... so he brings a lot to the table for us. We felt like it was enough of an upgrade."
An upgrade in every way. And not just over Jankowski, the suddenly great Freddy Gaudreau and the soon-to-be-great Radim Zohorna. Carter's also an upgrade in the sense that he'll allow Mike Sullivan and staff -- at long last -- to forgo concocting a fourth line and, instead, push the far better fits Teddy Blueger, Zach Aston-Reese and Brandon Tanev into that slot.
That's not a knock on those guys, by the way. Not in the slightest. It's just an acknowledgement that they'd be ... hey, ideal to serve there the same way the Islanders' self-styled 'Best Fourth Line In Hockey' -- Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterback, Matt Martin -- have done in New York for years. Most nights, thats anything but Barry Trotz's fourth-best line, but there's a cool, underdog, try-harder component instilled in the collective culture by what they do. The Blueger line can be just as good, if not better, at both ends of the rink.
Which leaves ... uh, here's where it gets vexing. And where, for me, it's all so unsettled.
Let's pretend Game 1 was, oh, tomorrow. Let's further pretend that the Hockey Gods didn't hate the Penguins being healthy at that everyone was fully healed. And let's further hear Sullivan speaking Tuesday about Carter's usage: "Our first inclination is to try Jeff at the center position because we think we need that at this point in time. We'll see how it goes. We'll see where it goes moving forward."
Here are my lines and pairings:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
McCann-Malkin-Kapanen
Zucker-Carter-Gaudreau
Aston-Reese-Blueger-Tanev
Dumoulin-Letang
Matheson-Ceci
Pettersson-Marino
Nice, right? Ideal, even?
Well, wonderful, but it's a prayer at best, at least per Hextall's rare public divulging of injury timelines in his session Monday. The one in which he stated that Tanev might not be back until the playoffs, that Kasperi Kapanen's "10-14 days away," and that, most important by far, Evgeni Malkin's "expected" to be back sometime in the regular season while also conceding that injury's a difficult read. And then, even after Sullivan announced Tuesday that Kapanen was back on skates, he announced that Gaudreau's now out "week to week."
My friends, that's scary stuff.
Setting aside the obvious uncertainty in those timetables -- and other injuries sure to occur along the way, with how this team rolls -- I'm hard-pressed to picture this group smoothly assimilating all those missing players into a unit clicks its way right into the games that mean the most. Particularly since they're all forwards and, with Malkin and Kapanen, they comprise a third of the top-six.
Heck, with Malkin alone, as we witnessed painfully early this season, it could take him a week or two to get all comfortable and confident. And that alone could wreak havoc with the team's passionate adherence to Sullivan's system while going 10-3 -- not to mention, astoundingly, leading the NHL in scoring! -- in his absence. That's not to be stupid and suggest he wouldn't be welcome but, instead, that the adjustments had all better be super-quick.
What's the precedent for that?
Answer: It's as scant as the precedent for Malkin skating on a line with McCann and Kapanen, not to mention the precedent for Carter meshing with his first new team in a decade.
Which winds me all the way back to No. 1 way up there.
Jarry and Casey DeSmith have combined to become one of the NHL's most productive tandems over the past two months and change. And if I were picking one starter for a Game 1, of anyone goaltender in the East Division, I'd take Jarry over any of them. If I were picking a tandem, for whatever that's worth in a postseason, I'd take Pittsburgh's.
In the moment.
I don't know if it's too tall of an ask, given what they've done already against most expectations. Maybe it is. But it had better not be. Because, with all due respect to the extraordinary effort put forth by the Penguins' skaters most nights, they still give up far too many Grade-As for comfort and, as was seen in those hiccups last week, everything can crumble when those chances are converted with any regularity.
Excellent goaltending has been needed all along, and that'll only escalate in May.
Not to be all negative and ominous here. Truth be told, the Carter trade alone is testament to this team's broader achievement in that, by all rights, Hextall and Brian Burke probably wouldn't -- or shouldn't -- have parted with draft picks had they not "forced us" to do so, per Hextall's most striking choice of words Monday.
This was the full remark: “We’ve had a lot of guys step up. And we felt like they’ve done a good enough job and, essentially, the team ... forced us to do this. ... That probably isn’t the right phrase. But they made us think long and hard about where we’re at. ... Acquiring Jeff is really a credit to the job our players have done.”
Credit goes all around.
Credit Hextall and Burke for operating ego-free in this scenario.
They took over seven games into this season and, rather than trying to apply their fingerprints all over a roster built by Jim Rutherford, they watched and waited ... and watched and waited some more. And in the end, even after making multiple public comments suggesting they'd prefer to get tougher and meaner -- to become more of a 'Brian Burke team,' in Burke's own inimitable phrasing -- they opted for nothing more than addressing a glaring need.
Credit Sullivan. He's won, and he's won his way.
In the shadow of those public comments that tacitly implied the Penguins were too soft, he kept preaching to answer any rough tactics with the best rapid response in hockey: Score more goals. And all through the injuries, he's kept the team ... wow, not just afloat but flying high. When Hextall lauded the team's "chemistry," he had to know that comes from his head coach.
Credit Sidney Crosby. It's still his team, and he still personifies it.
I've concerns about the heavy ice time he's logging, along with Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, in carrying the five-on-five load. Hextall brought that up on his own, which I found a bit surprising, but it's a very real factor worth monitoring. And, at the same time, it's commendable that the captain and his linemates have hit that extra gear when it was most needed.
Credit all of the players. But I'll pinpoint Gaudreau.
Don't laugh. For two months, this team's bottom-six seemed satisfied to kill time, shift after shift, going about their jobs as if punching a clock and presuming that Crosby, Malkin and the big names would handle the actual production. It wasn't until Gaudreau showed up and right away began producing himself that all the rest of the pluggers saw they had to do likewise, or they'd lose their jobs. Now, out of nowhere, Colton Sceviour's pumping home two goals fresh off clearing waivers.
It's a very good hockey team with a chance to be so much more.
This was how Sullivan put it Tuesday: "We understand we haven't accomplished anything to this point. That's a conversation we've had with our players. We're excited about the opportunity that's in front of us, but right now, that's all it is, an opportunity. Now we've got to go out and earn it."
With some puck luck and ... some plain old luck. Ideally.