No sooner had the puck fallen for the faceoff than it'd been flicked out of the circle, bouncing toward the point. Brandon Tanev bolted toward it, briefly collected it, began navigating a path out of his defensive zone ... and was pretty much flipped over upon running into the redwood-sturdy right leg of Cody Ceci.
"Hey! Hey! ... HEY!"
Tanev's gums were flapping and his long mane flailing as he swiveled around in vain for a mythical ref to make a mythical tripping call. And this after he'd already figuratively pleaded his case by raising his left arm while falling over Ceci's leg, then bounced right back up and kept right on churning those skates.
Dude's amazing. Never stops.
This took place in a five-on-five drill Friday morning at PPG Paints Arena, part of the Penguins' penultimate practice before opening the Stanley Cup playoffs Sunday against the Islanders. And I'll admit, it was in those few seconds that I'd realized I'd just wasted the better part of a week rewinding all eight of these teams' regular-season meetings.
Because this series, it says here, will be sorted by one simple facet above all: The faster team won't stop being exactly that.
For anyone interested, here are the basics:
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
And here's a review every meeting. And some deep-dive data, too.
But me, I'm sticking with skating.
When Herb Brooks was preparing the U.S. Olympic team for the 'Miracle On Ice,' among his many preachings was, 'The legs feed the wolf.' It was one he'd repeat upon becoming head coach here in Pittsburgh in the middle of the 1999-2000 season. And it meant, plainly, that a wolf won't eat unless its legs have the strength and endurance to overtake its prey.
I vividly recall Brooks sharing with me in his Civic Arena office one day his displeasure with the Penguins' leg conditioning to that point. And that displeasure wasn't aimed at his players' preparation, mind you, but with that of his predecessor, Kevin Constantine, who had that group mostly backpedaling, mostly trapping, often at a total standstill.
"Look at 'em," Herbie'd grumble while playing video of the Constantine team. "You have to skate. It's a game of skating. It'll always be a game of skating."
He might've thrown a few other choice words in there, too. But hey, a lot of us felt that way in the Constantine era. Mario Lemieux himself held his nose, as he'd later acknowledge. Imagine having Jaromir Jagr as the roster's headliner, and thinking passively. My goodness. Decades later, particularly within the framework of a franchise that's always prided itself on playing a beautiful brand of hockey, it still reeks.
Three more Cups have been raised since then and, thanks to Brooks' boomerang effect, the Penguins have long since buried the trap.
Barry Trotz ... eh, not so much.
These Islanders aren't quite the colossal bore of, say, the Devils or Panthers of the 1990s, but they're among the precious -- and mercifully -- few NHL teams still content to stand at center red, wait and wiggle their sticks. They're fully committed to filling the middle of the rink, both horizontally and vertically, clogging the neutral zone with a trap and packing it in between the hashes in their own zone. They do forecheck with far more fire than old-school trapsters, but they'll default to their heels as soon as possession's forfeited.
Regardless, the antidote to this approach has always been the same.
"They do a lot of good things," Kris Letang began his answer Friday when I'd asked how the Penguins attacked the Islanders en route to that 6-2 record. "They put you in position to force the play, and that's where they can counter."
He's referring to the trap, a strategic alignment between the blue lines aimed at creating turnovers. One defender forces the puck-carrier to pass, two other defenders align behind him in a triangle to pick off that pass, and away they go on an odd-man break.
"We've been able to minimize turnovers, putting pucks in deeper, getting in on the forecheck," Letang continued. "I think that's the key. Because if you try to get fancy in the neutral zone, they have guys who are good on the pursuit, who have really good sticks, a really good team posture ... and you don't want to give them any chance to counter."
OK, welcome to the playoffs, where only niceties about the opponent can be spoken on the eve of Game 1.
I'll handle this myself, then:
This gorgeous rink-length special from March 27, believe it or not, is a golden example of what not to do. The "fancy" stuff Letang cited.
Oh, it's awesome in the moment. Every gold sweater on the rink gets involved, highlighted by that one-touch gem at the Pittsburgh blue line by Colton Sceviour. It's tic-tac-toe with a whoa.
Thing is, that level of execution tends to be what it takes to navigate the neutral zone against New York's trap. And that's rare air.
Take the nonstop instead:
Sidney Crosby's far from alone among the Penguins capable of singlehanded trap-busting, and he's not even the best at it. Heck, in the above push that resulted in a ping off the bar March 29, he's barely at half-speed. He can do all that and then some, as can Tanev, Bryan Rust, Kasperi Kapanen, a fully healthy Evgeni Malkin and, from the back end, Mike Matheson, and I'm not at all listing everyone on the roster Jim Rutherford rebuilt in the mold of the Mike Sullivan system.
Specifically as it relates to the Islanders, ever since the trap was a gleam in Jacques Lemaire's eye, the mongoose to its snake has been a puck-carrier with speed. If there's no pass to pick off, there's no turnover. And if they aren't fast enough to catch the puck-carrier ... yeah, see above.
Skate. Skate. Skate.
Or see below:
This one's also from March 29, but a little different.
John Marino, Harvard grad and all, knows the Islanders fill the middle of the rink both vertically and horizontally. So it's not just about clogging up the neutral zone, but also about keeping opponents out of the middle of the defensive zone. And that alignment can take shape too early at times.
Up there, Marino sees that Brock Nelson's got zero interest in chasing him out on the perimeter, so he just keeps taking what's being given, which is a lot of north. So he keeps going. And going. And by the time he's below the New York goal line, his Paul Coffey impersonation results in an all-too-easy Anthony Angello finish.
Skate. Skate. Skate.
Speaking of north:
If Trotz had his way, every opponent would wind through the neutral zone as if it were a Texas interchange. Which is why the Penguins were at their most effective against the Islanders when being as direct as possible.
Above, Malkin doesn't pull up, doesn't hesitate, doesn't seek out a trailer or strive to be one, as he often does to great effect. Nope. Just forges ahead and saucers the sweetest of feeds for Jared McCann to also be as direct as possible.
Not pictured, but no less critical in this same context: Going north can involve pushing the puck behind the New York defense. Turn those guys around, have their backs to the play and, ideally, use that same speed, that same direction to gain possession.
All straight-line. All north.
Skate. Skate. Skate.
One more:
Once in the attacking zone, the skates can't stop. Because the middle-defending Islanders usually do. They'll watch and wait while prioritizing keeping both people and the puck from the high-danger scoring areas.
As seen in this Feb. 11 sequence, Marino's excuse-me burst at the blue line throws off Anders Lee, and all of the Penguins' blades keep churning with hard stops, starts and pivots until, eventually, enough Islanders are pried loose from that box for Jake Guentzel to penetrate with an alley-oop to Rust.
Of all the assessments anyone made in the past week about this series, this one from Rust resonated most with me: "I think being fast vs. playing fast … is self-explanatory, obviously. Being fast is north-south. Playing fast, you’re trying to move the puck quickly, get up the ice as fast as you can, join the rush, beat the opposition out of the corners. I think a team like the Islanders that always defends so well, that always has numbers back, we’ve got to really use our speed to gain maybe a foot or two, some space on their guys, try to make some plays when they’re there."
Yep. Do both. Nonstop. Direct. Legs feed the wolf 'n' at.
Skate. Skate. Skate.
That's all I've got till Round 2. Penguins in six.
