"We have to realize the position we're in and not be ..."
Kris Letang paused and looked at me from in front of his locker stall, clearly hoping for help. His English is far better than my Français, so I respected that and took a couple cracks.
Comfortable?
Complacent, maybe?
"No," he'd come right back. "Standing still. Like a deer-in-the-headlights kind of thing. We have to go get it. We'll need everybody. We'll need emotion, every single game. It doesn't matter who we're facing. Every single point is going to be important. Tonight, it was just an uneventful night, and we fell asleep in it."
He sure didn't, battling for two-plus hours per every interpretation of the term, but the bulk of the Penguins ... OK, now it's my turn to pause ... well, they basically bowed down to the Panthers, 5-2, on this Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena. They backpedaled. They froze up. They didn't find a blessed thing until they were down by four.
And the speechlessness as to why that'd happened seemingly spread through the locker room.
Watch the Rickard Rakell pause when I'd asked him the same simply question I'd asked Letang: What's missing?
The response itself probably wasn't as relevant as the pause, but he'd eventually reply, "I don't know. I'd say it's the confidence to make that extra ... that last play to make it a goal."
Now watch Mike Sullivan when I opened his press conference with the same question:
That pause was even longer than Rakell's, but he'd eventually reply, "This one's a tough one for me to assess, coming off the bench. Usually, I've got a pretty good feel for how a game was played. I just think it was ... it wasn't like we were under siege or anything. We just gave up some untimely goals. I thought the power play had opportunities to get us in the game, and we didn't execute. I don't think we handled their pressure very well. They're really aggressive on the kill. We could've done a better job there."
And then, another pause.
"It's not an easy one for me to assess."
I mean, that was at least a start. Both teams skated through a blah first period that saw seven total shots, the power play couldn't even set up while getting the game's first three opportunities, and Tristan Jarry spent the second period fishing the following four pucks from the back of his net:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 15, 2024
A gross overpass at one end, and a gutty drive to finish at the far end. Amazing how that can go.
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 15, 2024
Blast from the point. Body in front.
Do the names matter at all?
OK, maybe in the next two cases they do, since one name's worth calling out on both:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 15, 2024
Big effort from 'Big' Jeff Carter there, huh? But wait, he outdoes himself on this one ...
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) February 15, 2024
Trust me, the TV cameras aren't doing that level of laziness justice. Ask any of the 17,967 on hand who might've glanced back behind the play, and they'll attest that Carter couldn't have cared less about anything that would've occurred after he casually backhanded that puck to the Panthers just across their blue line.
Said it before, I'll say it again: He's stealing money here. He's been doing so for two years.
But then, that's as much on others as it is him. Ron Hextall never needed to sign him to that idiotic extension. Kyle Dubas never needed to pretend he'd be some sort of veteran fixture in a defensive role when nothing in his background supported that. And Sullivan ... my God, I get that there's cause for shuffling power-play alignments, but there can't be a stupider sight across the scope of the NHL right now than Carter being sent out to start a power play while Sidney Patrick Crosby sits on the bench until 45 seconds are left on the penalty clock.
Which happened. It did, I swear. First period.
This isn't about Carter, though. He isn't what he was, but he is what he is.
This, right here, is the issue:
NHL
Those are just the Eastern wild-card candidates, mind you. There are six teams ahead of this pack, and only two of what's up there make it. The Penguins are nine points back in mid-February and, far more ominous, there isn't a semblance of recovery at hand, much less momentum: They've now lost three in a row, all in regulation, and they've won five times out of 15 games since the calendar flipped to 2024.
Oh, and they haven't scored more than three goals in any of their past 11 games.
Look, these Panthers just might be great. No hype. If they keep performing as they have in recent weeks, they're a no-brainer bet to be back in the Eastern Final, at the least. They've got it all, from elite finesse in Aleksander Barkov to an elite power forward in Matthew Tkachuk to a suddenly elite finisher in Sam Reinhart to elite goaltending in Sergei Bobrovsky ... to elite depth that firms up the team-first identity that's now brought them 10 road wins in a row almost as a side dish. I'm taking nothing away from this opponent.
“We’re just trying to build trust inside the team," Anton Lundell would tell reporters down the hall after scoring twice. "That’s what’s going on right now. We’re getting more and more confident. We need to keep building on it.”
The Penguins, in a sorry contrast, are trying to stack the U.S. Steel Tower atop of a house of dog-eared cards.
Really, think about it: The stated objective of everyone from the Fenway Sports Group ownership on down, oft-repeated, remains to get another one with Sid. That's why the roster's the way it is and, to be blunt, that's why the salary cap situation's such that Sullivan was forced to suit up 11 forwards and seven defenseman for the first night of back-to-back games. Everything's about that sixth Cup.
I had no complaint about that entering this season, and I'm not about to complain now. If anyone can't process how much Sid's meant to this franchise, to this city ... I'd never believe they'd have read this far into a hockey column.
But this, as with all good things, it'll come to an end. It's a matter of when, not if.
Sid was asked after this game if change might be needed, and the captain began by echoing his coach's main message of the evening: "Tonight's a hard one to evaluate. It's kind of a wacky game. Obviously we have to win games, so whatever it takes. The Winnipeg and Minnesota games, we're a goal away from it being a different outcome. Tonight, it was a weird one. It's a hard one to evaluate."
He then was asked if there's a sense that the season's slipping away: "I don't know. It's not coming from here. We all have belief in here. We like to think we work pretty hard. It's not coming from here."
Not yet, anyway. And they'll get this chance. As I continue to report, Sullivan's not in trouble, Jake Guentzel's not getting traded even if this goes all the way south -- never mind that he might be seriously hurt after appearing to ram his wrist into the boards in the third period here -- and even a purported rebuild would have to look a lot more like a reload.
But next up are the Blackhawks, less than 24 hours later at 8:38 p.m. Eastern, in Chicago. They stink. They've lost seven in a row. They've been without wunderkind Connor Bedard for five weeks, and they'll be without him again for this one. Which means ... right, another absolute must-win. So soon after this absolute must-win. And the ones before those.
Remember those Rockford IceHogs a few months back?
That was a must-win, as well.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Anton Lundell, Panthers C
2. Matthew Tkachuk, Panthers RW
3. Jake Guentzel, Penguins LW
THE IN-GAME INJURIES
• Penguins: Jake Guentzel was being evaluated for "an upper-body injury," Mike Sullivan said afterward. Guentzel didn't take a shift for the final 11:58 after having been checked into the Florida bench by Niko Mikkola and apparently hurting his left wrist.
• Panthers: None.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel–Sidney Crosby–Bryan Rust
Reilly Smith–Evgeni Malkin–Jesse Puljujarvi
Drew O'Connor–Lars Eller–Rickard Rakell
Colin White–Jeff Carter
Marcus Pettersson–Kris Letang
Ryan Graves–Erik Karlsson
John Ludvig–Chad Ruhwedel
P.O Joseph
And for Paul Maurice's' Panthers:
Carter Verhaeghe–Aleksander Barkov–Sam Reinhart
Nick Cousins–Sam Bennett–Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen–Anton Lundell–Evan Rodrigues
Jonah Gadjovich–Kevin Stenlund–Ryan Lomberg
Gustav Forsling–Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola–Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson–Dmitry Kulikov
THE SCHEDULE
Like it or not, there's another game Thursday, 8:38 p.m. Eastern, against the Blackhawks in Chicago. I'll fly out in the morning to cover.
THE FEED
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