Kovacevic: This legit won't happen without Crosby-Guentzel-Rust line

UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- Oh, Jake Guentzel got up, all right. He always gets up. He’s got guts enough to stretch the length of Long Island itself.

But slowly. He got up slowly.

Here, this was the sequence:

Seen that a few times, huh?

Jake gains the attacking blue line with innocuous speed, gets off an innocuous 50-foot flick on Ilya Sorokin, then gets flattened all 6 feet, 3 inches and 205 pounds of Adam Pelech.

Maybe this feels familiar, too:

Bryan Rust gains the attacking blue line with innocuous speed, fails to create any play at all, gets crunched by Pelech, and two other opponents quickly converge on the loose puck to bolt back the other way.

Rust got up, but he'd proceed back to the bench with a bit of a hitch in his stride.

And no, this guy hasn't been immune, either:

Ugh.

Sidney Crosby attempts to gain the attacking blue line with actual speed and, sure, that's a holding penalty on all 6 feet, 5 inches and 225 pounds of Scott Mayfield for using his free hand to take him down. But hey, the way NHL officiating's taken a neanderthal turn in these Stanley Cup playoffs, that's as much a part of the game now as draws and dumps.

Sid got up, but only after a few painful-looking seconds planted on a single knee.

Find fault wherever one will for the Penguins' 4-1 loss to the Islanders in Game 4 of this first-round series Saturday at Nassau Coliseum -- and there are a ton of targets, a few of which I'll tackle below -- but nothing's stood out as a sorer thumb through this matchup, at least from this press-box perspective, quite like the failings of the first line.

Meaning, of course, that they've scored twice at five-on-five: One was a Crosby tip of a Brian Dumoulin shot in Game 1, with a secondary assist to Guentzel. The other was Rust's, uh, innocuous floater that somehow fooled Semyon Varlamov in Game 2.

That's it. Two goals, one assist at five-on-five. And nothing at all in the two games here.

What's going on?

I asked the captain:

"I thought today we had some good looks," Sid replied. "They’re not going to give you a ton, so when you get an opportunity, you've got to capitalize. You have to execute. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that. We had some really good looks in the second before they scored, and we've just got to execute. That’s really what it comes down to."

Good looks?

Hm. Make a note of that.

I also asked the head coach, with an emphasis on Guentzel, who's been getting ragdolled by New York's far bigger defensemen seemingly every other shift.

"Jake finds ways to get chances every night," Mike Sullivan replied. "He’s got a handful of chances in this series. He hasn’t converted on them to this point, but he’s had a number of pretty good looks. It’s gonna take hard work and stick-to-itiveness. We just gotta stay with it. I don’t think we were quite as sharp tonight. We didn’t have as many looks tonight as we had in the first few games. We’re gonna have to work for those moving forward. But these guys are good offensive players, and we just gotta stay with it."

Good looks again?

To be candid, when both used that same term in their answers to me, I kind of cringed. I couldn't recall a whole lot of quality scoring chances for any of the three in this series, but particularly not Guentzel or Rust. 

Then, upon further review, they were proven right: Guentzel leads the Penguins with seven individual high-danger chances, Rust is next with six, and Sid's got five. Their total of 18 accounts for half of the team total of 36. In plain old shots, Guentzel's got 17, Sid 13, Rust 9. And every meaningful advanced analytic -- shots, scoring chances, CF%, xGF, Jay-Z, XTC, ABBA, any acronym at all -- shows that they're way up from the regular season.

As good looks go, that's not a bad look.

So I ask again, only with even greater curiosity, what's going on?

Well, this is where I'll rely on being a first-hand witness and say, with confidence, that there've been precious few second chances. Rebounds and other garbage. And that's primarily because, I'd say, their chances occur in relative isolation. Meaning that two players cycle on the perimeter and find one guy somewhere in the middle, then can't -- or don't -- converge in time to help convert.

In other words, it's either going to be a pristine finish or nada. The puck goes right back out.

Oh, and one other thing: Their shots have generally lacked gusto. I'm not referencing to the accuracy as much as the oomph. They're just kind of ... there.

Like this:

I mean, how much did Rust really expect to get on a shot by first passing the puck to himself between his own legs?

That's a prayer and a half. And against this team when it's finally dedicated itself to defending -- as opposed to the first three games -- that's a rush up ice that just can't finish like that.

The answer is not a line change, to be clear. 

And there won't be one. Sullivan's as committed to this trio as Sid is, and that goes well beyond their uniform responses above. So dispense with any thoughts on that front and, along the way, pay no heed to Sid having taken three turns alongside Jeff Carter and Jared McCann in the final 10 minutes. That was for double-shifting purposes only.

Simply put, these guys need to bear down. They need to shoot like they mean it.

Finish or be finished. This line's just way too critical to the cause.

• If I could've gotten away with it, I'd have filed a five-word column on this game: They just didn't have it.

Because they didn't. And there really wasn't much more than that to dissect from a pure hockey standpoint.

• Getting the game's one good thing out of the way: Tristan Jarry continued to be terrific.

No one applauds giving up four goals, but two were directed behind him Teddy Blueger and Cody Ceci, another came after Kris Letang shoved the Islanders' Anthony Beauvillier right into him, and the fourth was a point-blank snipe by a wholly abandoned Jordan Eberle.

I’ll say it yet again: Nothing’s been more encouraging for the Penguins in this series than how this young man overcame Game 1.

• I always prefer Evgeni Malkin and Letang in their more emotionally invested form, but both went too far here. That began with Malkin engaging Cal Clutterbuck for early coincidental minors – as if that’s a fair swap – and it kept up the whole way through, lowlighted by Malkin recording three minors.

Honestly, though, what bugged me more was Malkin’s response when I asked about that: "Of course we understand we take too many penalties tonight, and of course next game we need to focus and play disciplined don’t give them any chance to play power play and not take bad penalties."

Nothing wrong with that. But then, he'd add this later: "It’s hard to go away every time after the whistle. If they push your goalie or they push your partners, you need to be strong. We understand how they play. We understand they are a physical team. But after the whistle, we need to stay together but not talk too much to them. We understand they need, like, trash talk. Trash talk all the time against us, against Sid. But it’s OK. It's one game tonight. We’ll be better next game."

This man's turning 35 in two months. He's spent nearly half his life in the NHL. His ears shouldn’t even be able to detect trash talk. Come on.

• I picked on other wingers above, but McCann, maybe the roster's most dynamic forward down the regular-season stretch, still doesn't have a goal.

The reason, as ever with McCann when he slumps, is that he's stopped shooting. He's got eight total shots, seven at even-strength, and he's attempted only three others.

And the reason for that, from what I've seen, is that he's excessively deferring to the sizzling Carter.

As the citizens say, 'Shoooooot!'

• Sullivan and his staff always had a Plan B to navigate the Islanders' trap for if/when New York would finally get around to taking defense seriously again. Well, the latter occurred in this game, and Plan B still never emerged.

Plan A: Skate through it
Plan B: Chip and chase

"We didn't get pucks deep as often," as Sullivan would elaborate. "And when you don't, it's hard to establish the zone time and territory that I think puts our team at its advantage. The execution coming through the neutral zone, the decisions with the puck coming through the neutral zone on whether or not to try to make a play or whether you have to simplify and put pucks below the goal line and create your offense different ways."

Here's hoping his wording to the group isn't anywhere near that layered for something so academic. This has to change for Game 5. And right away. As in, the new Plan A.

• There were some big, ugly defensive gaffes, too, the kind this team had scarcely been committing for months now. But, like I said, they just didn't have it. None of them except Jarry.

• The officiating stunk. Doesn't matter. 

The Penguins got "17 seconds on the power play," as Sullivan went out of his way to remind in one response -- it was actually 30 -- and the Islanders got five power plays. Doesn't matter.

At the time those early ones were issued, the general play was somewhat even. So it's possible the referees, Steve Pozari and Brian Kochmara, were influenced by the crowd. Doesn't matter.

Two of the penalties to the Penguins came on flagrant dives by the Islanders, one by Pelech, the other by Oliver Wahlstrom. Doesn't matter.

Worrying about the refs is as useful as trading coincidentals with Clutterbuck. Just play.

• Barry Trotz played coy with his choice of goaltender until warmups made it clear he was going back to Sorokin. He then praised Sorokin for stopping 29 of 30 shots, saying, "Ilya, when he was called upon, he was really sharp. I thought he looked solid."

Note that qualifying phrase: Sorokin wasn't exactly "called upon" often, as the Penguins produced a whopping eight high-danger chances, half as many as the Islanders.

This will be a mistake, by the way. Semyon Varlamov's spotty, but he's a more talented, more experienced goaltender than Sorokin.

• Not to be that guy, and I won't even spell this out, but ... anyone attending Game 5 Monday night at PPG Paints Arena ... think about what might be happening there that'd be pretty momentous.

Right. That.

• I'm not saying it will happen, mind you. My prediction stands: Penguins in six.