OK, deep breath.
I’m serious. Stop right this second, and take one. Chest expanding, cheeks puffed, the whole deal.
One game. It was one game of 82. And if the Penguins' 6-0 slaughtering at the Rangers' hands on this Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena had been just any other mundane mid-winter date in Winnipeg or Washington or wherever, rather than the franchise's 57th season opener before a boisterous capacity crowd here and a national TV audience on TNT ... that math might've felt more reflective of reality.
As it was …
Chris Kreider SHORTY, 5-0 #NYR pic.twitter.com/ARUuEZR5AH
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) October 10, 2024
Oh, yeah. First unit on the power play. Evgeni Malkin with the giveaway. Chris Kreider with the breakaway.
It's like we all never left the building back in April, huh?
"Not good," Geno would say of that sequence, by way of overwhelming understatement.
And that wasn't it. The Rangers dominated from the middle of the first period onward, finishing up by 41-29 in shots, up by 22-13 in high-danger shot attempts, plus so much more that it spills off the scoresheet. But I'll settle for this: Tristan Jarry conceded four goals on the first dozen shots he faced, if one were to unfairly count a New York goal negated by a zone entry that was a millimeter offside, and he still might've been his side's peak performer by evening's end in making 12 of his 35 saves off rebounds and -- get this -- stopping 14 of 18 high-danger shots, the latter figure marking the greatest single-game total of his career.
Probably as a result, Mike Sullivan semi-absolved Jarry, assessing, "I thought he responded really well after the first. I thought he made some big saves in the second and third periods. We've all got to find a way to focus on the game and focus on the details of your own respective game, and I'm confident Jarrs will do that.”
Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. I stopped wasting energy on Jarry forever ago, other than awaiting the day he's all-the-way replaced on merit.
Regardless, my main beef played out at the far end:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 10, 2024
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 10, 2024
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) October 10, 2024
I don't cover the Rangers. I don't care about the Rangers. And I definitely don't care about back-page New York narratives that hyper-inflate any and all intangibles related to their teams. So I also won't care that Igor Shesterkin's sure to steal all of the non-baseball headlines the morning after ... not so much because he was beyond brilliant in the first few minutes before wrapping up a 29-save shutout, but way more because, a couple days earlier, ESPN reported that he'd just rejected a contract extension offer of eight years for $88 million, a term that would've made him the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history.
So then, just like that, as if to show everyone what he's worth, he takes to the ice and sticks it to Sidney Crosby and the Penguins?
Yeah, they sop that stuff up.
Me, I saw it differently. With respect to Shesterkin being, to reiterate, beyond brilliant in the first few minutes, I also saw the Penguins still not finishing. I saw pretty much the same core pack of players who finished fourth in the NHL in shots last season, with 2,091, but a startling 18th in goals, at 253. I saw 72 total shot attempts in this game -- two more than the Rangers, believe it or not -- but zero goals. I saw 20 of those attempts get blocked, I saw 18 miss the net, and I saw only five following up rebounds.
That, my friends, is a problem until it isn't. If not the problem. Even more than the oft-singled-out power play, if only because the power play's collapse last season was very much related.
I asked Erik Karlsson how much it might've meant to bury even one of those early Grade-As:
"Yeah," he'd reply right away. "I mean, you can always say that, right? But I think it's true. We started the game good enough, I thought. We were carrying the game. And then they scored those two quick ones late in the period, and we had a tough time getting back."
I asked Sullivan the same.
“Well, hockey's such a game of momentum, and you have to maximize the opportunities when you have them," he replied. "When you don't, you get on your heels. You've got to find a way to simplify the game to get momentum back and not get hurt in those circumstances. So, I thought from a process standpoint, for much of the first period, we really liked what we saw. But we gave up a couple goals late in that three-minute span, and we just didn't seem to bounce back. That's maybe that's the lesson in it, that we've got to find some resilience, that we’ve got to try to climb back into it. But it did seem to unravel from there.”
Sure did. And at some stage, that script's got to change. Chances have to turn into shot attempts. And shot attempts have to turn into shots on goal. And shots on goal need to be accompanied by screens and/or a proximity to the crease with a preparedness to pounce.
None of that was in play here. Not one of those facets after the shot attempts.
Look, I'll repeat that I liked the smart summer Kyle Dubas had. I liked the competitive training camp Sullivan conducted. I liked -- a lot -- the aggressive approach David Quinn introduced to the power play. I liked seeing surprises among the players, from Jesse Puljujarvi's career rebirth, to Harrison Brunicke shining as an 18-year-old, to Rutger McGroarty cracking the roster at 20, to the superlative young goaltending of Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov that, again ... well, yeah, I'm awaiting that day.
I've liked all of the above enough that I'm not going to be stupid about one sickly game and slam the figurative door on the 81/82 of a full season that's still ahead.
I liked how Karlsson worded it: "It wasn't our day today. As much excitement as we had for this, all the right intentions, it just didn't want to happen for us. It's tough."
In Edmonton, Alberta, on this same night, the Jets beat the defending Western Conference champion Oilers by this same score, 6-0, and Connor McDavid didn't register a solitary shot. That won't hold up.
In Montreal on this same night, the Maple Leafs pumped 48 shots on Sam Montembeault, six of those off Auston Matthews' able blade, and never scored. That won't hold up.
In Las Vegas on this same night, Mikko Rantanen ripped off a hat trick for the Avalanche, who ran up a 31-21 edge in shots ... and the Golden Knights won by an 8-4 romp? That might never happen again.
Try those on for sighs.
• Taylor Haase was here, too. Check out our Penguins Feed. for her interviews Wednesday night with Tom Werner of Fenway Sports Group, and then with McGroarty after his encouraging NHL debut.
• Thanks for reading my hockey stuff. I'll be driving up to Detroit first thing Thursday to cover the next one.
• Thanks for listening, too: