Penguins focus on 'playing between whistles' in emotion-filled win

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Penguins had control of this game from the drop of the puck to the final whistle.

“They outplayed us," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said following the Penguins' 5-1 win over the Lightning here Thursday in Tampa. "Start to finish. And it was really bad at the start. ... Pittsburgh was exceptional. They imposed their will on us, and we had no answer."

The disparity was most evident throughout the first period. The Penguins were dominant in that frame: a 16-5 lead in shots, 31-14 lead in shot attempts, and 2-0 lead on the scoreboard. 

When the ice crew came out during the television timeouts to shovel the snow off the ice, they weren't picking much up from the Penguins' end. There just wasn't much action happening down there.

With the Penguins so in control, the Lightning started to get frustrated. They pushed back. They got chippy. 

With all the chaos between the whistles, it would have been easy for the Penguins to get frustrated in return, get off their game, and allow Tampa the opportunity to get back into it. 

They didn't.

"It was one of our more complete efforts all year long," Mike Sullivan said of his team's performance.

It really started late in the first period. Kris Letang and Lightning first-line center Brayden Point were engaged in a physical battle in the Penguins' end, leading to both sides exchanging some shoves. Point held onto Letang's arm and seemed to be asking him to fight, and Letang obliged. It was just the 10th time in Letang's career in which he's dropped the gloves in the regular season or postseason, and the first since he fought T.J. Oshie in the 2018 playoffs:

Sullivan didn't have much of an issue with Letang fighting when he did.

"I'm OK with it," Sullivan said. "You know, he's an emotional guy. He's as invested as is anybody out there and he wants to win. Obviously we don't want Kris fighting every night or any of that sort. He's way more important to us on the ice. But when he plays the game as hard as he does, and he's emotionally invested the way he is, sometimes that stuff happens."

That kind of edginess carried over into the second period. You could see it festering between whistles, like when Pat Maroon and Mark Friedman would start jawing at each other. Maybe more shoves and words exchanged than you'd typically see. 

It was late in the second period when all hell broke loose.

Corey Perry slashed Friedman's stick out of his hands. Friedman raised his arms in frustration, looking for a call that didn't come. Perry then took an extra whack at Tristan Jarry, and that did it. Friedman jumped up and grabbed Perry around the neck and yanked him to the ice. Jarry stepped in and gave Perry a few extra shoves for good measure. Bryan Rust flew in and jumped onto the back of Anthony Cirelli and wrestled him down to the ice.

"I tend to go after the biggest guys on the ice, which probably isn't the smartest thing to do," Friedman said after the game, referring to Perry, who is four inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than he is. "But that's just me being me. And if I could draw a penalty out of it like we did going into the third, then so be it."

After officials took some time to deliberate the penalties, the Penguins ended up on the power play. Perry got a double minor for roughing Friedman, Friedman just got a minor for roughing in return. Rust and Cirelli each got roughing minors. 

Cooper didn't like that, and was barking at the officials from the bench. Reading his lips, a couple of lines are clear. "You put us in the box all f---ing night. ... That's f---ing embarrassing. That's a f---ing joke, Wes," at referee Wes McCauley. 

That ended Cooper's night. He was ejected from the game, and the Lightning were down another man for the bench minor penalty. After the game, he expressed frustration with the way the penalties were handed out.

"That team, for some reason, they're by far the lowest penalized team in the league," Cooper said of the Penguins. "I'm not sure why, but they are."

Both Brock McGinn and Rust used the same phrase to describe the Penguins' mindset and message on the bench once the game started getting chaotic: "Play between the whistles."

There might be some extracurricular activities during stoppages, but they had to stick to their game when it mattered.

"It's not the first time," Rust said of playing games like this one. "There's been a lot of teams in this league, during the regular season during past years, and we tried to do the same exact thing. I think we know what we've got to do out there."

The core's influence contributes to being able to keeping everything in check and not letting the team's play unravel during games like those.

"When I look at the core guys that we have here and our leadership, these guys have been through that a lot," Sullivan said. "That's not anything that they're not accustomed to. When you play a team like Tampa, that's one of the top teams in the league. Everybody's invested. It's one of those games. It's fun to play in. It's fun to be a part of. There was a lot of emotion on both sides. It was a competitive game out there, and I think that was just an indication of it."

With a tough schedule coming up against some strong opponents, that focus on "playing between the whistles" might come in handy down the stretch.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Evgeni Malkin was in "beast mode," as Sullivan put it. More on him here.

• Danton Heinen scored the game's opening goal, just as he did in the Penguins' season-opener here back in October. It ended an eight-game goalless streak for him. He picked up a rebound from a Kasperi Kapanen shot:

• Sidney Crosby's power play tally less than three minutes later made it a 2-0 game:

• The Lightning's lone goal came from Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in the second period after Kris Letang turned the puck over:

• McGinn regained the two-goal lead, ending a 13-game goalless drought, a period in which he's only recorded one assist. You could see the relief in his celebration:

"It's a big relief, I think," he said of the goal. "You just keep with it. I think you've just got to go out there and keep playing the same way, and hopefully the bounces come your way. So it was nice to get that one."

• Malkin's breakaway goal was his third point of the night, after recording the secondary helpers on both the Heinen and Crosby goals.

• Tampa pulled Andrei Vasilevskiy in favor of the extra attacker with over seven minutes left in the game, down three goals. Jake Guentzel capitalized with an empty-netter with exactly six minutes left.

• Aside from the assist on Heinen's goal, Kapanen really just had an overall strong game, using his speed more and keeping his feet moving, and had a couple of other good plays to set up his teammates.

"I thought Kappy's game was good," Sullivan said. "I thought Kappy was playing on his toes, as his speed was evident. I thought he was he was pressuring pucks, he was involved, he was engaged. And that's what we're asking of him. And if he plays the game like that, he's going to help us win a lot of games.

• Malkin, as the winner of the previous game's Bold Penguin helmet, got to choose the recipient of the helmet tonight. He gave it to Dominik Simon, the second time Simon's gotten the helmet this season:

The fourth line did have a quiet good game -- when they were on the ice, the Penguins controlled 66.67 percent of shot attempts (14 for, 7 against), the best rate on the team. Simon also got involved in some of the physical battles when things got chippy, and got a misconduct in the third period for roughing, as did Cirelli.

• Jarry made 20 saves on 21 shots, facing just five shots in the first period and eight in each of the latter two frames. A 20-save night doesn't stand out as being impressive, but seeing shots so infrequently is a challenge in itself.

• Friedman, who says he played soccer growing up, tried headbutting a puck during the game. He got just enough on it that it took the No. 2 sticker off of the "52" on the front of his helmet. He joked after the game that he was trying to "take a page out of (Jason Zucker's) playbook, referencing Zucker's headbutt of a puck in a game in November.

• Friedman told me when he was in Wilkes-Barre that he's trying to "pick his spots better" when games get chippy. Sullivan offered praise for Friedman in that regard tonight, saying that he "kept his discipline." Friedman knows that he got under the skin of a handful of Lightning players in this one though, and he enjoyed that.

"Maybe next time we play I'll have a picture of me in their room or something," he said.

Friedman's entire postgame availability is worth a watch, he's funny:

• Evan Rodrigues crashed Rust's postgame availability to ask the tough questions:

• The Penguins typically travel well when it comes to their own fans in opponents' buildings, but tonight was on another level, and was a little surprising given that the Lightning are back-to-back defending champions. The "Let's Go Pens!" and "Geno!" chants toward the end were louder than some of the Lightning's own chants from earlier in the game.

• A week ago, Mario Lemieux ranked second in Penguins franchise history in game-winning goals with 75. After Malkin's game-winner over the Rangers, and Crosby's game-winners in Columbus and Tampa, Lemieux now sits fourth in the franchise rankings for game-winners. Malkin and Crosby both surpassed him and are now tied at 75 each, three shy of Jaromir Jagr for the No. 1 spot.

• The Penguins ended a five-game winning streak for Tampa.

• This was Jeff Carter's 50th game of the season, satisfying the conditions to upgrade the conditional pick traded to Los Angeles from a 2023 fourth-round pick to a third-round pick.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Amalie Arena:

1. Evgeni Malkin, Penguins
2. Jake Guentzel, Penguins
3. Danton Heinen, Penguins

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• Teddy Blueger, center, has been on injured reserve since undergoing surgery to repair a fractured jaw Jan. 24. He's been practicing with the team and has been cleared for full contact.

• Louis Domingue, goaltender, has been on injured reserve since he was struck by a puck in the right foot at a morning skate Jan. 20. He took part in Thursday's morning skate, the first time he's skated in a team setting since his injury.

• Mike Matheson, defenseman, sustained an undisclosed upper-body injury Feb. 24. He's week-to-week.

• Jason Zucker, left winger, has been on long-term injured reserve since undergoing core muscle surgery Jan. 25. He's week-to-week.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evgeni Malkin - Kasperi Kapanen
Brock McGinn - Jeff Carter - Evan Rodrigues
Zach Aston-Reese - Brian Boyle - Dominik Simon

Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino
Mark Friedman - Chad Ruhwedel

And for Jon Cooper's Lightning: 

Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn - Steven Stamkos - Mathieu Joseph
Pat Maroon - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Corey Perry
Ross Colton - Anthony Cirelli - Taylor Raddysh

Victor Hedman - Mikhail Sergachev
Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak
Jan Rutta - Andrej Sustr

THE SCHEDULE

The back-to-back concludes with a trip to Raleigh to play the Hurricanes on Friday. Dejan will cover that one.

THE CONTENT

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