SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Pardon me if I'm causing old trauma to resurface, but do you remember that Sean Bergenheim, Dominic Moore tag-team goal to knock the Penguins out of the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs?
Having a tough time remembering? Click here at your own peril for a refresher.
In this 3-1 victory over the Sharks Tuesday night at SAP Center, Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel teamed up for their own rendition, except it was even better.
Take a look:
Uh, are you kidding me?
Too easy.
"I wasn't sure, just trying to be ready," Guentzel would say when asked if he knew that puck would be coming his way. "I think he made a lot of people fake on that one, especially the goalie. Got lucky off the post and off the goalie, but you’ll definitely take those."
Guentzel wouldn't budge when pressed if that's a maneuver they've practiced before.
"Just got to be ready when you’re with him," Guentzel insisted. "He made a nice play to make everyone fake, and it’s pretty easy for my job there."
Let's take this all the way back to the start of the sequence in the neutral zone, because it's that good.
That little touch-pass from Crosby in the middle of the ice -- right around oncoming Logan Couture -- is a thing of beauty in and of itself, yet we're just so used to seeing things of that nature from Crosby. But it was instrumental in allowing the entire sequence to develop and unfold.
After Rickard Rakell drew a Sharks skater to seal him off along the wall, Crosby and Guentzel quickly had the opportunity to isolate a defenseman for a 2-on-1. They did just that and exploited him.
With Guentzel getting off the wall and toward the middle of the ice, forcing the defenseman with him, Crosby overlapped with Guentzel by cutting underneath him and darting to the ice Guentzel had just vacated.
The second Guentzel ran out of real estate, he dropped the puck off for Crosby. The captain allowed his momentum to carry him below the goal line and behind the net as he surveyed for the next play. Or maybe it was simply to appear as if he was surveying for that next play.
Just as San Jose goalie Aaron Dell committed himself to go from one post to another, Crosby slipped an absolute dime of a backhand pass right into the tiniest, softest spot for Guentzel to collapse on the puck and redirect into a then open cage from a tough angle.
Crosby never even so much as looked in Guentzel's direction until after the pass had been made. He just knew he'd be there.
Eyes in the back of his head.
