TORONTO -- Don't sweat the specifics.
Yeah, these Penguins had somehow, spectacularly soared back into a Stanley Cup playoff spot, only to slip right back out yesterday because the Red Wings scored twice more than the Sabres yesterday or some such. And that'll stay the scenario in one shape or another, I'm guessing, right down to the regular-season finale against the Islanders on the 17th of April up in Elmont, N.Y. It'll be a revolving door at the Eastern Conference's periphery of the Stanley Cup playoffs ... through the final horn that very night.
And in the interim, the final five games will have the boys face those same Red Wings and Islanders, hunting the same prey, in addition to three of the NHL's top-tier teams in the Maple Leafs tonight here in Canada's throbbing heart -- 7:08 p.m. faceoff, Scotiabank Arena -- followed by the Bruins and Predators.
Seriously daunting stuff, right?
"You know what? Whatever," Drew O'Connor would share with me over the weekend, smiling as he spoke. "It doesn't matter who we play. It doesn't matter where we play them. If we play like we've been, we can beat anybody. And I'd like to think we've shown that."
Yeah, just a little. But especially at the back end: Over this ongoing 6-0-1 surge, the Penguins have outscored their opponents, 30-16, they've had 84 high-danger chances to the opponents' 71, and they've had an 11-5 edge in goals scored in such situations. And while that says plenty about their newfound productivity in front of the other goaltender's net -- thanks mostly to Michael Bunting -- it says that much more, from this perspective, for what they've done in front of Alex Nedeljkovic's net.
Want to have some fun?
OK, but let's start with this clip from Saturday, the 5-4 victory over the Lightning at PPG Paints Arena, which isn't fun and, actually, is a big bore:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 7, 2024
The Bolts had been the league's hottest team, riding a 10-1-1 sizzler while blowing almost everyone away in that span. But they couldn't get a solitary puck onto Nedeljkovic until a dozen minutes had expired, and even then it was from beyond center red.
What's seen above is principally why: Emil Martinsen Lilleberg rings it up the left boards, where the Jon Cooper scheme calls for one or even two forwards to corral it, tip it deeper, something, anything other than what'd happen. Because P.O Joseph's waiting to prevent any wide entry, he coolly collects and fires laterally, at which point Erik Karlsson chips ahead systematically to Sidney Crosby, who chips ahead systematically to O'Connor, who chips ahead systematically to Bryan Rust, who dumps deep and chases hard enough for a 50/50 forecheck.
Boring but beautiful. Total teamwork.
But don't put those yawns away just yet:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 7, 2024
That's Nikita Kucherov, nothing less than the league's leading scorer, revving it up ... then getting nowhere. Valtteri Puustinen's filling the middle with the 1995 Devils-looking backtrack through the neutral zone, flanked by the other two forwards and, yet again, with the defensemen aligned to prevent any wide zone entry, the type that'd burned the Penguins for the better part of the first five months.
None of that posture's new, by the way, as Mike Sullivan confirmed for me the other day in Washington. It's being applied correctly and with commitment.
Kucherov starts a second try up there to the right, but Marcus Pettersson and Lars Eller apply a double-team at the far boards, the puck rolls below the goal line, Kris Letang systematically banks ahead to Reilly Smith, who systematically banks ahead to Eller, and the boomerang's in full effect.
One more, since defending on special teams is kinda critical this time of year. This one's a little longer, but simplify the study by isolating throughout on No. 3, the newbie Jack St. Ivany:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 8, 2024
That's a four-on-six, with the Lightning on their No. 1 ranked power play and having pulled Andrei Vasilevskiy for the final minute and a half. And that's St. Ivany, pretty much living in the blue paint, blocking not one, not two but three Tampa Bay shots.
Know all those valid criticisms of Sullivan's reluctance to play young players?
Know the antidote for that problem?
Eat pucks, kid. Just eat pucks.
Look, I'm not about to downplay, much less dismiss the impact of more scoring -- the Penguins have been for-real the NHL's highest-scoring team since mid-March -- and I'm not diverting an atomic sub-particle of credit from Nedeljkovic, who's earned his eight-game starting streak to the core and who'd damned well better be back in the crease here tonight.
But condensing all this to what looms tonight, these guys aren't going to beat those guys by letting themselves down defensively. They just won't. The Maple Leafs are the league's third-highest scoring team over the full season, and Auston Matthews' 64 goals are 11 more than anyone else has. And if that wouldn't come through clear enough for whatever reason, the Penguins only need to recall that Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and company scorched them by a 7-0 count in their previous meeting here Dec. 16.
Nothing to overthink here. They've beaten the Rangers at the Garden in this surge, and that's the best team around. They've beaten the Bruins earlier this season. They've beaten the Islanders, once by a 7-0 count of their own. They've beaten the Red Wings. They've gotten a point from the Predators in their only meeting. They've beaten these Maple Leafs, too.
As Karlsson would tell me over the weekend, "We know what to do. We know we can do it. We just need to go make it happen now."
The blueprint's in place.
• This solar eclipse thing is nuts. Driving up here last night, right in the Erie/Buffalo/Toronto path, there were just endless streams of cars. Felt a lot like the final scene of 'Field of Dreams,' for anyone who'd get the reference. And in Erie, where I stopped to get gas, a couple of students offered me free special glasses to save my eyes, designed and distributed by Penn State-Behrend. What a time.
• I'd be remiss if I made it through the column without a tip of the cap to a certain 8-2 ball club. Say what one will of how the Pirates walked it off Sunday, but the Orioles just might be Major League Baseball's best team, and taking two of three's the best outcome yet on this young season. I'd planned to cover both halves of the two-game set with the Tigers tonight and tomorrow, but playoffs beckon.
• Thanks for reading.
• And for listening:
