Kovacevic: Yeah, Penguins are worth a trade upgrade ... within reason

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- That Edmonton embarrassment might've been the end.

An easy end at that.

The manner in which these Penguins' players, the coaches and the brass responded a few days ago to being blown to bits by Connor McDavid's Oilers could've been seen, plain and simple, in the singular light of how it'd left them out of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, losers of four in a row, ambling along aimlessly for seemingly the umpteenth time. Only this was so much worse, so much more ... humbling?

Yeah, that sounds about right, based on my interactions with all concerned. That was some other team's generational talent strutting his stuff out there. That was some other city's stirring collection of youth, skill and speed. That was a down elevator coming into fleeting contact with an up elevator.

Be sure that it hurt, too.

Maybe almost as much as my own cringe, well after the final horn that night, upon witnessing Brian Burke's complexion having taken on countless shades of purple as he strode silently out of PPG Paints Arena.

Then came St. Louis. Total dominance. Yet another blown late lead, but the optimal outcome in overtime.

Then came Tampa. Nowhere near the dominance that the scoreboard might demonstrate, but sound defense and enough finishes for a figurative bowl of chili.

Then this: Penguins 3, Predators 1.

"It wasn't perfect. Not a great start, by any means," as Bryan Rust would tell me on this Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena. "But we came around. We got there."

They did, initially by awakening in the second period, then achieving all of their offensive output in the third:

Nice, right?

Sidney Crosby's breakaway brought the icebreaker with 11 minutes left after he beat Juuso Saros beneath the blocker arm, Jason Zucker capped a furious forecheck by whipping the winner behind Saros with 1:39 left, and Rust put home possibly the prettiest empty-netter of the NHL season for the wrap. While all throughout, Tristan Jarry made 24 saves that included 13 high-danger chances for Nashville.

Is it progress, though?

I asked the captain, renewing a recurring conversation we're having, if the general performance is getting where he'd like it to be:

"Yeah, I think we're getting there," Sid replied. "I think we'd still like to limit the chances against and make sure that, you know, we're not putting ourselves in bad spots just from our own doing. Make teams work for their chances if they're gonna get them. And I think the penalty-kill was really good, but the power play's got to pick it up a little bit. I mean, we can be difference-makers, especially in games like this that are tight."

Mm-hm. They went 0 for 3 here with four total shots.

"So I'd say, you know, the power play and just limiting our mistakes are two areas we'll look to improve," he continued. "But you know, we've been competing hard and getting rewarded for it. So I want to keep going."

Makes sense. No one turns down six points out of six.

I asked the head coach about this, too, only hours after asking something super-similar following the morning skate here: Is this team's performance, particularly when it comes to defending and 200-foot play, moving in the right direction?

Another affirmative came.

"I thought so," Sullivan replied. "We weren't really pleased with the first period. I thought we were a little loose. I thought we gave up a lot of chances."

No argument here. The Predators owned the shots, 17-9, including an opening-shift breakaway by Mikael Granlund that Jarry'd thwart.

"But I thought we responded really well. We gave up the goal in the third."

That was old friend Mark Jankowski pouncing on an egregious Kris Letang turnover at 7:01.

"But it didn't rattle the bench. We just kept playing, found that way to get the next goal." 

There were others who liked it, as well, and the sentiment wound up universal. Where others might see stumbling blocks, they see building blocks. Where others might see inconsistency, they see -- say it with me -- 'stick-to-it-ive-ness,' Sullivan's favorite new term.

I'm ... not sold.

I do believe this team will make the Stanley Cup playoffs for an 18th consecutive season. The record's now 30-21-9 for 69 points and, while that's good only for the second and final wild-card spot, there are four games in hand on the Islanders (70 points), who hold the other such spot. The Sabres (66 points) have a game in hand on the Penguins, but the Panthers (64), Senators (64), Capitals (64) and Red Wings (64) are ... eh, look, I'm not wasting anyone's time with all this.

They'll make it. They just will. Too much talent still in the fold, even without upgrades.

But then, that's really the issue now, isn't it?

It's not whether Ron Hextall should try to upgrade the roster at the NHL's Friday trade deadline. That's been set in stone all along, and it'll remain so for as long as Sid's under contract. The team's committed to trying to contend for more Cups while this living legend -- and Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang -- are still here. There's never been a solitary thought among anyone who matters about selling.

To what extent, though, should Hextall go? To what extreme, even?

I mean, no one rational who's watched this team of late, including through these three wins, could conceivably be convinced that the Penguins are a player away? Or two players? Any two players?

Likewise, no one rational who's familiar with the system could conceivably regard the roster at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton as having many answers. Don't misunderstand, please: I'd take Valtteri Puustinen over either of McGinn or Kasperi Kapanen, the two newly waived forwards, but there isn't much beyond him, to be kind.

So, who to chase? And how much to give up? And should there be any thought invested in the very real chance that, hey, maybe next year presents a far more plausible opportunity than this one could?

Man, I just don't know.

I'm looking around the league right now at all the teams, many of them Metro rivals, passing out first-round picks like Halloween candy, and I wonder if it's the perception of their value that's changed, or if it's the reality. I hear Julien BriseBois, the super-bright GM in Tampa, defending his having shipped a hundred-plus picks here to Nashville for a third-line winger, Tanner Jeannot, because he won't be spoiled forever with a Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy in his employ, and I nod right along with it. But I also come equipped with enough of a memory to wonder how Pittsburgh would respond to a rebuild of any scope, and I hate seeing picks get traded almost as much as I hate that Wilkes-Barre roster right now.

Here's what's certain: These current Penguins, for all their flaws, come with equal components of camaraderie -- go ahead and roll the eyes at that, but it's damned relevant, as we're still seeing -- and uncommon skill at their top end. And one could argue that those are the two toughest traits for any team to accumulate as a tandem.

A third-line center to bump Jeff Carter to the wing?

A more mobile defenseman to bump Brian Dumoulin to the bottom pair?

A foaming-at-the-mouth winger to bring the energy that neither McGinn nor Kapanen ever would or could?

Yeah, this is worth that. It's fair and, in the proper context, it's right.

But let's not get nuts. We've seen 60 games now, and we haven't seen a team worth extreme additions since before Christmas.

NHL

• I'll repeat for emphasis: It's not the rest of the Eastern field, in spite of the tightness illustrated in the above NHL graphic issued after this game, that'd have me worried if I'm the Penguins. There's enough in their room to outpace any and all of the teams in their range, including the Islanders. I believe that.

I also believe that competition brings out the best in this collective, something reinforced for me on this day by Jeff Petry, who's been candid about it all season.

"We look forward to the challenges, no question," he'd tell me. "Well, now we've got a challenge every day."

• I don't care what the Rangers are doing, either. Or the Devils. Or the Bruins. I find it impossible to manufacture much of anything on those teams until I'm feeling that the Penguins are even operating in that orbit. They aren't.

• No participant on either side was sharper than Jarry. Taylor Haase has much more on his night.

• No participant on either side was more inspiring to his team than McGinn. Taylor has all that, too.

• Don't be swayed by the most microscopic of sample sizes, meaning McGinn's night or the once-every-lunar-cycle Kapanen hat trick. This depth chart of forwards is far stronger through the subtraction of the past few days. Now imagine how it'd look with real reinforcements in their place.

• Sid had no interest in carrying that breakaway any further once he saw the hole under Saros' arm: "I see an opening, and sometimes guys get time with the puck and other times they don't."

• Zucker was even less scientific with his winner: "On that one, it was a good forecheck," he'd begin before crediting Rickard Rakell and Evgeni Malkin in saying, "Both held onto pucks at some point there, and it just kind of popped out. Honestly, I didn't even look at the net, I was just trying to get it on net, and it happened to go in. Kind of a lucky one for me there."

Baloney. What a wonderful season he's having. And he's earned it.

• Geno was outstanding. No points. Just two shots. I thought he was outstanding all over the rink. That happens.

• I'd play Jarry in both Florida games, but that's just me. He's spent enough time watching. It's go time, and plus, there's a day off between all three games on this trip.

• Drew O'Connor will benefit over time from working with his hands at the NHL level. He'll struggle at times, for example, to go backhand-forehand coming down his off-wing, which stands out all the more since he's so authoritative in creating such chances in the first place.

But man, let this kid play. He's flying. He's wrecking. He feels like a goal-and-a-half waiting to happen.

• Sid was 15-3 on draws, which is almost as funny as his most frequent counterpart, 23-year-old Cody Glass, going 1-11. Better luck next time, junior. 

• Impossible to be in this place and not recall 2017. I'm sure it'll always be like that. What a time. And what a setting for that time. Musical, magical and ... in the end, kinda like this game, a certain someone broke a tie with less than two minutes left.

• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. And a special thanks, with all the dads on the trip, to Roland Rakell -- standing behind Sullivan in the below postgame pic -- for having bolstered our Swedish subscriber base a few months back:

THE ESSENTIALS

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

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Bridgestone Arena:

1. Sidney Crosby, Penguins C
2. Mark Jankowski, Predators C
3. Tristan Jarry, Penguins G

THE INJURIES

• Ryan Poehling, left winger, has a lingering upper-body injury and has resumed skating with the team.

• Mark Friedman, defenseman, has an upper-body injury and has resumed skating with the team.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan's lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Brock McGinn-Jeff Carter-Danton Heinen
Drew O'Connor-Teddy Blueger-Josh Archibald

Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph-Jan Rutta

And for John Hynes' Predators:

Mikael Granlund-Cody Glass-Matt Duchene
Kiefer Sherwood-Tomas Novak-Phil Tomasino
Zach Sanford-Mark Jankowski-Luke Evangelista
Yakov Trenin-Colton Sissons-Cole Smith

Dante Fabbro-Roman Josi
Ryan McDonagh-Alexandre Carrier
Jeremy Lauzon-Cal Foote

THE SCHEDULE

Wednesday's a travel day for the team, flying to Florida for the final two legs of the trip. The next game's Thursday against the Lightning, 7:08 p.m., in Tampa. Taylor and I will both be there.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.