There can't be many hockey players on the planet more dynamic, more dangerous upon knifing through a neutral zone than Nikolaj Ehlers. If pressed to name names, I'll come up with Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Jack Hughes ... then draw a blank.
"So fast," Lars Eller would rave of his fellow Dane in the NHL fraternity. "When Nik revs it up, he's so hard to stop."
Hard, but hardly impossible:
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Listen, I promise I'll get to the Penguins' 3-0 shutout of the Jets on this Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, a performance that saw the home side emerge in excellent form following a nine-day break. There was plenty to love amid a crush of contributions.
But that up there was Erik Karlsson, doing what he's done far too frequently of late, sliding a purposeless lateral pass across the Winnipeg blue line that might as well have set up a personalized launch pad for Ehlers.
And that also was Karlsson flashing elite wheels of his own, first by sticking stride for stride with Ehlers, then by elegantly timing his turn toward Ehlers in the Pittsburgh zone, then by hemming him into the corner, then by reaching around him to poke the puck away.
All that follows, from everyone else on the Penguins picking up a white sweater to Tristan Jarry swallowing up the harmless point shot, was academic.
And yet, somehow, stirringly, maybe stunningly representative of the evening as a whole.
"I remember it," Marcus Pettersson shared with me of Karlsson's work there. "He can make those plays."
Yeah, he can. They all can. Which is kinda the thrust here, I'd think.
I don't have to wonder what the 17,086 on hand found most heartening about this particular outcome. Not after Noel Acciari was felled in a frightening way by this filthy head-hunter's special by Winnipeg's Brenden Dillon in the second period ...
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... only to have the Penguins respond with not just this Jeff Carter power-play goal on the ensuing five-minute match penalty ...
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... but this bonus second one by Bryan Rust, as well:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 7, 2024
That’s cool. That’s fun. That's how games get won.
As Jake Guentzel would word it, referencing Acciari, "You never want to see a guy go down like that. That's not a great hit. For us to get two goals, that's the best way to get back at them."
Acciari didn't return, but he didn't need to be taken to the hospital and, per Mike Sullivan, "He's doing OK." Here's hoping for the best.
The injury itself aside, the team's performance couldn't conceivably have followed a more Sullivan-friendly script: Emerge from the tunnel ready to play, regardless of context. Pursue the puck passionately all over the rink. Protect it once it's possessed. Push pucks and bodies to the opponents' net. Push pucks and bodies away from your own. And above all, in this instance, when punched, punch back on the power play.
Never mind simply being able to cite the power play without the use of vulgar language.
“We've got a lot of new faces on this team this year, and we anticipated some adjustment processes both five-on-five and special teams,” Sullivan would say of the Penguins going -- this is official, mind you -- 2 for 1 on the man-advantage, since both goals came on the same statistical opportunity. “So we felt like we've tried to exercise a certain amount of patience to try to help the group work through things. … and at some point, that change is necessary in order to try to get more favorable results. And that's where we're at right now, and that's why we're we've made the decisions that we've made.”
Meaning, primarily, moving Karlsson and Evgeni Malkin to the second unit -- until recently unthinkable on both counts -- alongside Carter, Eller and Rickard Rakell, and flanking Sidney Crosby on the first unit with Rust, Guentzel, Reilly Smith and Kris Letang. As if for more sweet symmetry, each of those units converted once.
"We did a lot of good things," Sullivan would further assess of the team's five-on-five play. "We had numbers back. I thought we made pretty good decisions with the puck, for the most part. And that's against a team that's hard to play against. They play with a lot of structure."
He might've been underselling the Jets, actually, as they're 30-13-5, fourth in the NHL by points percentage, and they've given up 2.31 goals per game, by far the league's lowest such average.
I'll reemphasize it myself: It's a quality W.
Heck, I haven't even mentioned Tristan Jarry's 24-save shutout, his league-high sixth of the season, one that might've been highlighted by this point-blank beauty on Adam Lowry in the third period:
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Or, for that matter, Letang's dazzling dangle before this icebreaking backhander behind Connor Hellebuyck, the heavy favorite to claim another Vezina Trophy:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 7, 2024
Not exactly the type of extraordinary-effort goal the Jets have allowed often, to say the least.
But then, these Penguins have that. And I'll persist in pointing out that they have enough of that to seldom have to stress it. That, if they defend, first and foremost, the scoring will occur with or without a conscious focus.
The question, of course, is this: What'll it take to keep them as engaged as they very visibly get against top teams, only to look down their collective beaks at the pedestrian likes of the Sabres, Senators and so forth?
The answer should be this: They remain five points behind the three teams at the wild-card cutoff of 58 -- Flyers, Maple Leafs, Red Wings -- and that's a perilous position for anyone once the calendar's flipped. Even with three or four games in hand on each of those teams.
“We know that we have games in hand on a lot of teams in front of us," Rust would say, "and we've gotta win as many games as we can.”
Yep. And to achieve that, they've got to execute as if they're embracing defending, as opposed to following orders or whatever.
Everyone's got to find their inner Pettersson, one of the few in this fold whose deeds consistently keep pace with his words:
“It still felt like they made a lot of plays off the rush," he'd say of the Jets as part of our two-minute talk up there. "Maybe we could do a better job, like, maybe denying the middle a little bit. But we had a lot of sticks in the middle. That was great to see. And when we didn’t, we had Jarrs to back us up.”
Yep again.
Everyone's got to contribute some semblance of sustainability to the process.
“Yeah, I think defending, a good forecheck, forcing turnovers ... that's very sustainable," Eller would say. "We were on the right side all game on their rushes. That good defense led to some offense for us. That was key. When we’re able to do that and play well without the puck, staying above it ... that might be a little boring to watch, but it can be very, very effective. It’s just about commitment, having guys in the right spots and moving your feet. I think everybody can do it.”
One would think. But as we've all witnessed, that's a hell of a hard sell within this collective, whether they'd concede that or not.
"It has to happen. It has to," Sullivan would say on this subject, as starkly as I can recall from him all season. "That has to be part of our identity, that willingness to play a team game. An important aspect of winning in this league is that, No. 1, you can't beat yourself and, No. 2, you've got to be hard to play against. You can define that different ways but, for me, when I think about this group we have, being hard to play against is just being stingy. Having those numbers back. Being positionally sound. Having good sticks. Closing on people. Taking time and space away. Using our quickness and skill sets to win pucks. I think this group's very capable of that."
He paused a moment.
"We can still have a quick-strike offense. We can create offense different ways. But at the end of the day, if we're going to get where we want to go, we've gotta keep the puck out of our net."
Shout it from the top of Mount Washington. About time they're speaking it out loud.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Tristan Jarry, Penguins G
2. Jeff Carter, Penguins RW
3. Bryan Rust, Penguins RW
THE IN-GAME INJURIES
• Penguins: Noel Acciari, right winger, sustained an apparent head injury upon being illegally checked by Winnipeg defenseman Brenden Dillon, in the second period. He didn't return. Mike Sullivan said after he's "doing OK," but offered no other detail.
• Jets: None.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith-Evgeni Malkin-Drew O'Connor
Rickard Rakell-Lars Eller-Jesse Puljujarvi
Jansen Harkins-Noel Acciari-Jeff Carter
Marcus Pettersson-Kris Letang
Ryan Graves-Erik Karlsson
P.O Joseph-Chad Ruhwedel
And for Rick Bowness' Jets:
Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Gabe Vilardi
Cole Perfetti-Sean Monahan-Nikolaj Ehlers
Nino Niederreiter-Adam Lowry-Mason Appleton
Morgan Barron-Vlad Namestnikov-Alex Iafallo
Josh Morrissey-Dylan DeMelo
Brenden Dillon-Neal Pionk
Dylan Samberg-Nate Schmidt
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins' practice that'd been scheduled for Wednesday was canceled after this game, so the next session will be Thursday, and the next game will be Friday night against the Wild in St. Paul, Minn.
THE FEED
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