TAMPA, Fla -- Marcus Pettersson has 19 assists this season.
He had two in the Penguins' 5-4 overtime win here in Tampa alone, including the primary helper on Jason Zucker's overtime winner.
The assist he had on Zucker's first goal in the second-period, though, might be his finest of the season.
P.O Joseph and Jeff Carter were engaged in a puck battle with two of the Lightning along the boards when the loose puck popped out to the side. Pettersson quickly recovered it and executed a perfect Murphy dump-like pass nearly the length of the ice to Zucker's stick. Zucker buried the shot five-hole on Andrei Vasilevskiy:
I asked Pettersson if he thought that was his best helper of the year, and he chuckled and said that it just might be.
"I just saw him skate as fast as he could on the far side," Pettersson recalled. "It's a tough play for a defender to have to turn around. I figured I wasn't sure if it was going to go off the back wall or just try to hoist one in their end. It ended up that the ice was a little bit banged up at the time, so it ended up stopping for him. A great finish by him, too."
It was just a week ago that Mike Sullivan spoke about the way his defenseman have been contributing offensively this season, saying "even though our defensemen might not have a ton of goals as a group of six, I do think they’re doing a lot of things out there that help us create offense."
Plays like this are certainly part of what he's referring to there.