WASHINGTON -- When Kasperi Kapanen was asked to assess his recent play following Wednesday's practice back in Cranberry, he was succinct (but polite) in his response.
"Terrible, thanks."
At the time, Kapanen hadn't scored since Nov. 26, the lone goal in a win on Long Island. He recorded two assists at home against the Canadiens the following night, then went scoreless on the four-game Western road trip, recording a combined seven shots and minus-1 rating.
Halfway through that trip, Kapanen was demoted from the second line to the third line. In the final game of the road trip against the Kraken, he was moved to the fourth line mid-game alongside Drew O'Connor and Dominik Simon.
With Jake Guentzel suffering an upper-body injury in that game that now has him sidelined week-to-week, an opportunity was created for a player to step into Guentzel's spot on the first line alongside Sidney Crosby and Evan Rodrigues.
The coaching staff believed that moving Kapanen to that line would give Kapanen's game the boost it needed.
"If (Kapanen) plays with Sid and E-Rod, for example, both of those guys have the ability to get him the puck, and he has finishing ability," Mike Sullivan said Wednesday of moving Kapanen to that top line.
The decision paid off. Kapanen's second-period goal on Friday at Capital One Arena in Washington stood to be the game-winner in a 4-2 win over the Capitals.
Rodrigues got possession of the puck, and passed it to Crosby in transition. Crosby's backhand pass went right to a wide-open Kapanen, who sneaked it under the glove of Ilya Samsonov:
"Obviously, the way I've been playing hasn't been my best, so I think it was important to kind of get back on track," Kapanen said afterward. "Pretty easy to do that with Sid and Rod. I thought throughout the game we were getting a lot of chances and playing well."
When the Penguins' top line was on the ice together at five-on-five, the team recorded 17 shot attempts and allowed 12, the only line to be on the ice for more for than against. Of those 17 attempts, 12 became shots on goal for the Penguins, while they allowed eight shots on goal against.
Kapanen said that the key to finding success with that line was "just skating."
"Not necessarily even with the puck, but just getting on the forecheck," he said. "I thought we made them turn over a few pucks and got some good chances from that. Whenever I'm moving, it's usually when I'm at my best."
Sullivan spoke earlier in the week about wanting to "break some bad habits" that Kapanen has, and the one he pointed to is something that tends to happen when Kapanen isn't in a situation where he's able to use his speed.
"He tends to want to play in constant motion," Sullivan said Wednesday. "Sometimes you get a stop on the puck, sometimes you don't go away from the traffic, you've got to go into it in order to maintain possession or things of that nature. There's opportunity in the traffic you can create, you can create lots of chances, if you can win pucks and create some separation out of it."
Kapanen said that in Friday's game he focused on doing just that, getting into the traffic and into those battles.
"I was just trying to stay close in the offensive zone," he said. "I think that's something I've been trying to work on in my game. Sometimes, I tend to kind of drift away from the puck and the battles, so I'm not helping them out as much. I think that was a problem when I tried to play with (Crosby) earlier. Now I'm trying to kind of remind myself to be close and be an outlet, or just get in the battles. I think that showed today."
Sullivan agreed. He said that he thought Kapanen had "a great game," even aside from his goal.
"I thought he was strong on the puck, I thought he challenged Washington with his speed, scores a great goal," Sullivan said. "He made some nice plays. He played on both sides of the puck, he made a couple of wall plays coming out of our end that gave Sid and E-Rod a couple of opportunities off the rush. So I thought he had a really strong game, you could tell he was excited to play and he certainly stepped up for us tonight."
Kapanen was clearly frustrated with his play before Friday night, as made clear by his "terrible, thanks" assessment.
A game like the one he had tonight has him feeling a lot better moving forward.
"Whenever you have a good game, it's always going to give you confidence, and scoring a goal never hurts, too," he said. "Hopefully, the future looks as good as it was tonight."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Brock McGinn collided with Washington defenseman Martin Fehervary in the second period. It looked like Fehervary took contact to the head, he was down flat on the ice for some time before heading to the locker room with assistance from an athletic trainer. Fehervary didn't return and was being evaluated after for an upper-body injury.
"Marty went to move the puck off the stick and the player came through him and his head snapped pretty good," Peter Laviolette said afterward. "I think that is what they are evaluating.”
Eller was asked about the hit, and said that he'd leave it up to others to decide whether it was the principle point of contact or not.
"I think when he goes down like that, I think there was some contact to the head, I'm pretty sure," he added.
McGinn was asked for his take on what happened, and acknowledged that he hadn't seen the replay yet.
"He was kind of just trying to chip the puck and go by me," McGinn said. "I stayed in my lane and we kind of just made contact. I don't think I was dirty at all. That's it."
• Tristan Jarry made 29 saves on 31 shots, perfect until Evgeny Kuznetsov's goal with 12:27 remaining in regulation. Lars Eller had the Capitals' second goal, after the Capitals had pulled Samsonov in favor of the extra attacker.
"He's been one of our better players throughout the season," Kapanen said of Jarry's performance. "He's been fantastic and, whenever he's comfortable, it gives us a lot of confidence. And I think that shows."
• Danton Heinen had the game's first goal off of a great feed from John Marino:
"I didn't think Heinen would be that open," Marino said of the pass. "But he made a great play, a nice give-and-go on and went right to the net. I was a little surprised how wide open he was. He made a great play."
• McGinn extended the lead in the second period. He was on the outside of the left circle and looked like he was trying to get the puck to Teddy Blueger at the net-front, but the puck deflected off of Kuznetsov's skate and in:
"I kind of saw Teddy going to the net there, so I think if you put pucks toward the net, sometimes good things happen," McGinn said of the goal. "That was just the case there."
• Jeff Carter scored the empty-net goal for the Penguins. Crosby had a nice feed to set it up, and Jarry's secondary assist was the eighth assist of his career:
• Tom Wilson left the game for the Capitals at second intermission and didn't return, and is currently being evaluated for an upper-body injury. Laviolette said postgame that Wilson's injury stems from this moment late in the second period when he went sliding into Jarry after being tripped by Marcus Pettersson:
• Kapanen was up first to speak in the postgame media availability. The plan was to have another player join him and speak at the same time. McGinn and Marino both wanted to go, and Kapanen joked, "I don't want to go with Johnny." McGinn and Marino did rock-paper-scissors, McGinn won, so McGinn spoke alongside Kapanen and Marino had to speak alone. When I asked Marino about Kapanen's play tonight, he pretended to still be mad over Kapanen saying he didn't want Marino joining his press conference.
"Yeah, he's a great player. I don't know how many nice things I want to say about him now. But yeah, he stepped up big and I'm sure he'll continue to do so."
• The scratches sit behind us in the press box here, and I think it's neat that they still openly cheer for the guys with whom they're in direct competition for a spot. Sam Lafferty for Drew O'Connor, Mark Friedman for Chad Ruhwedel.
• The media meal here included pierogies. I didn't have any. They looked a little suspect.

GETTY
Evgeny Kuznetsov takes a shot on Tristan Jarry in Friday's game in Washington.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Capital One Arena:
1. Kasperi Kapanen, Penguins
2. Lars Eller, Capitals
3. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• Forward Evgeni Malkin is still recovering from his offseason knee surgery. He has resumed skating with the team in a non-contact jersey.
• Forward Bryan Rust left the Nov. 26 game in Long Island with an undisclosed lower-body injury and is currently week-to-week.
• Forward Jake Guentzel suffered a upper-body injury in Monday's game in Seattle and is currently week-to-week.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Evan Rodrigues – Sidney Crosby – Kasperi Kapanen
Jason Zucker – Jeff Carter – Danton Heinen
Zach Aston-Reese – Teddy Blueger – Brock McGinn
Drew O'Connor – Brian Boyle – Sam Lafferty
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino
Mike Matheson - Chad Ruhwedel
And for Peter Laviolette's Capitals:
Alex Ovechkin – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Tom Wilson
Carl Hagelin – Lars Eller – Connor Sheary
Daniel Sprong – Connor McMichael – T.J. Oshie
Beck Malenstyn – Alexei Protas – Brett Leason
Martin Fehervary – John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov – Nick Jensen
Matt Irwin – Justin Schultz
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will host the Ducks at PPG Paints Arena, Saturday at 7 p.m., the debut of the diagonal "Pittsburgh" third jerseys. Dejan will cover that. The team's scheduled to have a day off Sunday before returning to practice Monday.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.