TORONTO -- Woof.
No, really, there can't be a more appropriate term for the Penguins' 4-1 loss to the Maple Leafs on this Thursday night inside Scotiabank Arena than the simple sound of a dog's single bark.
Preferably a sad dog.
A sad dog lost in a winter storm, like the one that smashed southern Ontario with a foot of snow overnight.
A sad dog lost in a winter storm that slept through the game's opening 21 ticks, like this:
Say it with me: Woof.
Say it with Mike Sullivan.
"I don't know if I have an answer for you," he'd open up. "We obviously didn't have our best. We just weren't good enough tonight. We didn't execute well enough. I don't think we were hard enough to play against. You can't give a team of that caliber the types of opportunities that we gave them. I mean, they're a good hockey team, you got to give them credit, but I don't think we did what we needed to do to limit the quality of the chances that we gave up."
Say it with Sidney Crosby.
"I think you've got to learn from it, but also, obviously, try to move by it," the captain would reply to my bringing this up. "I think we know we can be better, and we've got to execute better. For whatever reason, we didn't. Whether it was special teams or five-on-five, we just didn't do a good enough job of executing. It's hard to win games like that."
That's it. They had nothing. Not one thing. No passing. No presence. No pressure. No push to their skating, as their feet seemed to be set in cement. And if one stat stood out amid all this slop, it was their season-high official 19 giveaways, and even that count was laughably low compared to the reality.
The totality of my stance on this one night is this: It happens.
They're 31-12-8, first in the Metro, one point shy of the East's best record, four shy of the NHL's best record. They'd won four in a row overall, six in a row on the road. And get this: They'd gone 26-5-4 since mid-November, matching the most points in franchise history over any 35-game stretch.
Not one of their first 50 games saw a dog like this. Which is as incredible as it is commendable.
It happens.
GETTY
Jeff Carter falls in front of the Maple Leafs' Jack Campbell in the second period.
• Now, I do have a broader point to make, but I'd prefer to do so in a bullet that's offset from what's above. Because, again, this game was so far outside the norm that I'm not sure anything of worth could be culled from it.
It's more of a question, actually: Why wouldn't the Penguins, from Ron Hextall and Brian Burke on down, strive to see more of Radim Zohorna, Drew O'Connor and any other youngster who might -- that's might -- be able to contribute when the games mean far more than they do now?
I had this thought, to be honest, in watching Zohorna and O'Connor at the day's optional skate. Not that anything in that setting would matter. I was just wondering how it'd become so casually accepted, or so it seems, that either of these two should be scratches while the lineup's littered with forwards who aren't producing a blessed thing.
Kasperi Kapanen's got zero goals in his past 10 games, one in his past 16. And although he momentarily overcame in this game his maddening penchant for pulling up and pirouetting, he also saw this as an opportune time to pass:
Out of the low slot. With a power play about to expire.
I can't begin to fathom what Hextall, Burke or Sullivan should do with this player. But it couldn't be more obvious that this isn't working.
Evan Rodrigues, after a team-MVP-level start, hasn't scored in 18 games. He's no longer even visible much. He's not on the puck. He doesn't take shots.
In this game, as if to force his way onto the scoresheet, he took two silly minor penalties, the second of which handed the Maple Leafs what'd wind up being the decisive power-play goal.
Oh, and this was Rodrigues on the fourth Toronto goal:
No one in white plays this scenario well, but Michael Bunting, the goal-scorer, is Rodrigues' guy all the way. And he just ... stops to watch?
That's a player itching to be scratched.
Zach Aston-Reese's drought shames all others, of course. He's got zero goals in his past 26 games, one in the 43 games he's been handed a helmet. And over these past 26 games, he's registered more than a single shot five whole times.
Here's what he did with his only chance on this night:
Was that even a shot attempt?
Dominik Simon, author of the above pass, has two goals in his past 13 games, but only three for the season.
What makes any of these players sacred?
I can't know what'll become of Zohorna and O'Connor over the long haul. But I'm confident right this second in suggesting they've got more potential to grow into very real contributors to the cause -- this season, not just down the road -- than any of the four I just listed. And that there's no way to analyze, much less realize, that potential if they're both up in the press box with me.
• Put it another way: The Penguins are a whopping 18 points ahead of the Red Wings, the first team out of the Eastern playoff picture. They're going to make it.
I'm not about to paint all the hockey in between as immaterial, but it's also not critical in terms of outcomes. Zohorna's been given eight games, O'Connor 22. If they get more and do nothing with them, so be it. But this approach eliminates even the possibility.
• I did ask Sullivan if maybe there's pressure now on some of these non-producing forwards, given that Zohorna and O'Connor are here and waiting.
"Well, there's always pressure in this league," he began. "That's the nature of what we sign up for. And when you have a competitive roster, like our team, there's always going to be an internal pressure to perform. And I'd like to think it's not so much the pressure as it is just pushing one another to be at our best. Without a doubt, when when we're completely healthy, we have a very competitive roster, and that internal competition, I think, is a positive thing for our team. We're going to try to put the best players on the ice that give us the best chance to win. That that's what we try to do each and every night."
OK, but these nights don't matter anywhere near as much as those in May and June.
• Tristan Jarry's just so good. He was, as ever, the exception to any collective downswing, singlehandedly keeping the Penguins from getting run off the rink, with several of his 25 saves being superb.
I asked Sid about that, opening up with whether he could recall even one subpar showing over the entire season.
"No, I don't," he'd reply. "I think he's been real solid. Tonight, we made him work much more than he should have to, and he still gave us a chance. He did a great job of sticking with it and hanging in there for us."
• Another bright spot: Evgeni Malkin's new line, alongside Jeff Carter and Danton Heinen, was the Penguins' most effective, accounting for 19 shots attempts to the Maple Leafs' eight while on the ice five-on-five.
And it was Malkin and Carter teaming up for the lone goal:
Kind of a disjointed rush there, but having two talents like that out there allowed for patch-ups as they proceeded.
"I thought they were decent," was as far as Sullivan would take it. "They had some real good shifts after Geno scored in the third period, in particular. I thought it was their strongest period, where they had more zone time and were more of a threat."
• The Malkin line had a 70.37 Corsi For percentage at five-on-five, and Sid's line wasn't far behind at 66.67. Rodrigues' line was at 40.00, Brian Boyle's at 35.29.
"We see that, when we win games, we got contributions from everybody," Marcus Pettersson replied to my question about needing general balance. "You saw in Jersey, and the last game, too, it's tough when you've got one or two guys pulling the weight. I mean, they're really good players, but they can't pull you every night. We've got to find ways to get contributions from everybody more consistently."
• Not that I'd want to go too far in citing this game's advanced analytics. Accurate as they almost always are, this one showed the Penguins commanding 19 of the game's 26 high-danger scoring chances and ... uh, no.
• Similarly, Jack Campbell was credited with 45 saves, and I'd swear he didn't have to sweat for half of those.
Sheldon Keefe, Toronto's coach, called Campbell "outstanding," and he'd get named No. 1 star.
No one asked me, but anyone who can generate a hockey gem like this coast-to-coast power-play goal from Morgan Rielly ...
... should clinch No. 1 star on the night on the spot. And a new car or something. What a rush. What a finish.
“I just saw some room, that’s all," Rielly would recall. "Those power-play breakouts with those two guys behind me, it’s normally an automatic drop. So when there's a chance to go, you want to be able to take advantage of it.”
He'd have to settle for second star.
• No shame in this from the opposing perspective, to be sure: The Maple Leafs are 32-12-3 overall, they've won seven in a row at home, and they're 21-4-1 when scoring first.
Just because they haven't even appeared in a Stanley Cup Final since 1967 doesn't mean ... aw, I typed that just to type it. Busted.
• As if the evening weren't already awful enough for the Penguins, they got stuck here an extra night. They'd found out late in the game that there'd be no escaping this winter storm, so, rather than take any risks, their rooms were renewed at their hotel here, and they were set to fly back in the morning.
The only additional casualty was a practice that'd been scheduled for Friday, noon, in Cranberry. That might not displease the players, but here's betting Sullivan would've welcomed it.
• Coming up to Canada feels akin to time travel, with all the COVID restrictions still in place in all walks of life up here. It's like it was in Pittsburgh ... wow, more than a year ago?
Look, they're free to conduct their country -- and provinces and cities -- as they see fit, so I'm not about to roll a figurative 18-wheeler into Ottawa on this subject. But I'm comfortable sharing here that it's crazy what a contrast there is from one side of the border to the other. And equally comfortable sharing that I'm looking forward to heading home.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
A half-empty Scotiabank Arena in the first period.
• Thanks for reading, as always.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Scotiabank Arena:
1. Jack Campbell, Maple Leafs G
2. Morgan Rielly, Maple Leafs D
3. Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs C
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• Drew O'Connor, left winger, has been on LTIR since Jan. 15 with an upper-body injury. He's back to practicing.
• Teddy Blueger, center, has been on IR since undergoing surgery to repair a fractured jaw Jan. 24. He's expected to miss 6-8 weeks. He's skating.
• Jason Zucker, left winger, has been on IR since undergoing core muscle surgery Jan. 25. He's week-to-week.
• Louis Domingue, goaltender, has been on IR since he was struck by a puck in the right foot at a morning skate Jan. 20. He's week-to-week.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
Heinen-Malkin-Carter
McGinn-Rodrigues-Kapanen
Aston-Reese-Boyle-Simon
Dumoulin-Letang
Pettersson-Marino
Matheson-Ruhwedel
And for Keefe's Leafs:
Bunting-Matthews-Marner
Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander
Mikheyev-Kampf-Kase
Engvall-Spezza-Simmonds
Rielly-Brodie
Muzzin-Holl
Sandin-Liljegren
THE SCHEDULE
Again, the Friday practice was canceled. The Saturday practice remains set for 11 a.m. in Cranberry, followed by the game Sunday against the Hurricanes at PPG Paints Arena. Faceoff's at 1:08 p.m. Taylor Haase and I will have that one.
THE CONTENT
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