Grind: Size, screens and skill can compensate for Sid
Good Friday morning!
• Jacob Markstrom was seeing everything. And I'd seen him like this more than once.
Brief interlude: A few years back following a frustrating loss for the Penguins in Vancouver, I'd been chatting with Sidney Crosby about how all-engulfing Markstrom had appeared to be, aligning his 6-foot-6 frame with everything whipped his way. To which Sid marveled right back and, a ton more telling, Phil Kessel sat at the next stall muttering ... well, I still have no idea what those noises were, just that they were on the same subject.
My goodness, he's missed.
Anyway, this scene Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena wasn't the same, of course -- no Sid, since he'll miss a month to a knee injury, and no Phil in forever -- but Markstrom, now 36 but still eye-level with the Gulf Tower and still capable of a towering performance, had been beaten once on the first 25 shots he'd face. And even that was on a deft deflection by Tommy Novak. What's more, there'd been a half-dozen clean breaks and four point-blank one-timers.
"Their guy," as Novak recalled for me, "was outstanding."
There was an answer, though, and it'd be best observed within the Penguins' third-period tiebreaker to beat the Devils, 4-1, in their return from the NHL's Olympic break.
One that's very much worth a breakdown ... or should I say, a bar-down:
Two for the price of one, right?
Ryan Shea blasted the first, Connor Clifton buried the second to make it 2-1 at 6:30 of the third period and, by the time Evgeni Malkin set the stage for a beauty by Egor Chinakhov 40 seconds later, the New Jersey bench might as well have sunk to sea level.
But never mind that. To see what Markstrom was seeing on this sequence, watch the replay for a riveting look at ... Justin Brazeau's rear end. And Ben Kindel bouncing around in that same space, as if he, like Brazeau, stood 6-6 himself.
Clifton noticed.
"That's PP2, baby," he'd tell me through a broad grin, referring to the second power-play unit that tends to include Brazeau and fellow giant Anthony Mantha ... even though this wasn't a power play at all. "That's just the way those guys play. They're all bunched up there in front, banging away to make traffic."
And cracked the code on Markstrom.
"He battled," Sheldon Keefe, New Jersey's coach, would say. "He gave us every opportunity."
Unless it was taken away.
On Novak's goal, he and Mantha had set a twin screen so that, even when Kris Letang semi-shanked a one-timer from the left point, it still sneaked through Markstrom. On Clifton's goal, because of having to track the puck through "four bodies," as Keefe would bemoan, Markstrom appeared to lose the play entirely. And at other stages, the crease-crashing just kept coming and coming. All four forward lines, even the occasional defenseman, and sometimes with speed off the rush. Rickard Rakell, Avery Hayes and Connor Dewar each generated such a rush and no small amount of spray.
It's been an underappreciated aspect of these Penguins' stirring success not only that they've created real scoring depth but also that they've scored so many of the gritty, grimy variety.
I asked Brazeau how much this might mean in the weeks ahead, minus Sid:
Good stuff there.
Good stuff throughout the event, actually.
"We weren't very sharp," Clifton would say of the outset. "But I thought in the second and third, we were good, like we didn't miss a beat. Obviously, we were playing really well before the break. But now we're right back in it. Another big one Saturday."
Yep. Rangers. Garden. National TV.
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
Evgeni Malkin congratulates Egor Chinakhov on the breakaway goal he set up.
• Arturs Silovs was pretty much perfect in his own right, with 28 saves, including several that rang multiple bells. Separate file on that from Taylor Haase.
• Dan Muse made plain he's not about to designate Silovs or Stuart Skinner his de facto No. 1, and that's only sensible. Just too many games ahead. Both will be needed.
• And that's 30 wins now, in 57 games:
NHL
Can't say it often enough: Don't sweat the rest of the East. Doesn't matter with the chasm that's being created in the Metro between the top three teams -- all of whom qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs -- and the rest. Just look at the Penguins having five points between them and the Capitals PLUS three games in hand. Or seven points between them and the Blue Jackets.
• People ... this team's 15-3-3 since Christmas. They'll be OK.
• Maybe most encouraging of all that occurred: Geno had two assists, a plus-1 rating, four shots, six shot attempts, and he even took three draws despite the lingering shoulder issue. Really had the legs revved up on several shifts, too.
• The new line of Hayes, Rakell and Bryan Rust acquitted itself well metrically -- on the ice for a 9-6 edge in shot attempts at five-on-five, better than anyone else -- but they came across to me as being mostly disjointed. I'm talking jellyfish-level disjointed.
We'll see, I guess.
• I've been saying all week that Sid would be missed more on faceoffs than some might realize and, sure enough, the Devils won 33 of 55. Rakell, back at center for the first time in more than a year, was 3-7. Only Kindel had a positive showing at 5-4.
• Clifton scoring in the first game where he replaces Ilya Solovyov wasn't a small thing. More relevant, I'd say, after a couple early lapses, he settled himself on three separate occasions in the defensive zone, by my count, to make a smart, sharp outlet.
"It's something I need to do, for sure," he'd respond when I mentioned that. And after he tried to recall all three -- and eventually described them all -- he'd say, "I have to be making those plays."
He also registered a game-high seven hits.
• Sam Girard had three giveaways. Debut mulligan feels fair.
• The penalty-kill was 5 for 5, but most important within that was that three of the four non-bench minors were avoidable. Two were stick fouls, a third was ... well, Jesper Bratt took a spill, but Kris Letang still didn't need to interfere. Muse doesn't mention penalties often, but he made it a point after this one: "Gotta clean that up."
• Pretty cool to see Pittsburgh's roaring ovation for U.S. Olympic hero Jack Hughes before the anthem. I knew the fans would cheer, but I hadn't foreseen it being long and loud enough to move him to raise his stick twice to acknowledge.
Hughes called it "something I’ll always remember, every time I come back to Pittsburgh."
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. First of many, many, many games in a row.
THE ASYLUM
Grind: Size, screens and skill can compensate for Sid
Good Friday morning!
• Jacob Markstrom was seeing everything. And I'd seen him like this more than once.
Brief interlude: A few years back following a frustrating loss for the Penguins in Vancouver, I'd been chatting with Sidney Crosby about how all-engulfing Markstrom had appeared to be, aligning his 6-foot-6 frame with everything whipped his way. To which Sid marveled right back and, a ton more telling, Phil Kessel sat at the next stall muttering ... well, I still have no idea what those noises were, just that they were on the same subject.
My goodness, he's missed.
Anyway, this scene Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena wasn't the same, of course -- no Sid, since he'll miss a month to a knee injury, and no Phil in forever -- but Markstrom, now 36 but still eye-level with the Gulf Tower and still capable of a towering performance, had been beaten once on the first 25 shots he'd face. And even that was on a deft deflection by Tommy Novak. What's more, there'd been a half-dozen clean breaks and four point-blank one-timers.
"Their guy," as Novak recalled for me, "was outstanding."
There was an answer, though, and it'd be best observed within the Penguins' third-period tiebreaker to beat the Devils, 4-1, in their return from the NHL's Olympic break.
One that's very much worth a breakdown ... or should I say, a bar-down:
Two for the price of one, right?
Ryan Shea blasted the first, Connor Clifton buried the second to make it 2-1 at 6:30 of the third period and, by the time Evgeni Malkin set the stage for a beauty by Egor Chinakhov 40 seconds later, the New Jersey bench might as well have sunk to sea level.
But never mind that. To see what Markstrom was seeing on this sequence, watch the replay for a riveting look at ... Justin Brazeau's rear end. And Ben Kindel bouncing around in that same space, as if he, like Brazeau, stood 6-6 himself.
Clifton noticed.
"That's PP2, baby," he'd tell me through a broad grin, referring to the second power-play unit that tends to include Brazeau and fellow giant Anthony Mantha ... even though this wasn't a power play at all. "That's just the way those guys play. They're all bunched up there in front, banging away to make traffic."
And cracked the code on Markstrom.
"He battled," Sheldon Keefe, New Jersey's coach, would say. "He gave us every opportunity."
Unless it was taken away.
On Novak's goal, he and Mantha had set a twin screen so that, even when Kris Letang semi-shanked a one-timer from the left point, it still sneaked through Markstrom. On Clifton's goal, because of having to track the puck through "four bodies," as Keefe would bemoan, Markstrom appeared to lose the play entirely. And at other stages, the crease-crashing just kept coming and coming. All four forward lines, even the occasional defenseman, and sometimes with speed off the rush. Rickard Rakell, Avery Hayes and Connor Dewar each generated such a rush and no small amount of spray.
It's been an underappreciated aspect of these Penguins' stirring success not only that they've created real scoring depth but also that they've scored so many of the gritty, grimy variety.
I asked Brazeau how much this might mean in the weeks ahead, minus Sid:
Good stuff there.
Good stuff throughout the event, actually.
"We weren't very sharp," Clifton would say of the outset. "But I thought in the second and third, we were good, like we didn't miss a beat. Obviously, we were playing really well before the break. But now we're right back in it. Another big one Saturday."
Yep. Rangers. Garden. National TV.
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
Evgeni Malkin congratulates Egor Chinakhov on the breakaway goal he set up.
• Arturs Silovs was pretty much perfect in his own right, with 28 saves, including several that rang multiple bells. Separate file on that from Taylor Haase.
• Dan Muse made plain he's not about to designate Silovs or Stuart Skinner his de facto No. 1, and that's only sensible. Just too many games ahead. Both will be needed.
• And that's 30 wins now, in 57 games:
NHL
Can't say it often enough: Don't sweat the rest of the East. Doesn't matter with the chasm that's being created in the Metro between the top three teams -- all of whom qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs -- and the rest. Just look at the Penguins having five points between them and the Capitals PLUS three games in hand. Or seven points between them and the Blue Jackets.
• People ... this team's 15-3-3 since Christmas. They'll be OK.
• Maybe most encouraging of all that occurred: Geno had two assists, a plus-1 rating, four shots, six shot attempts, and he even took three draws despite the lingering shoulder issue. Really had the legs revved up on several shifts, too.
• The new line of Hayes, Rakell and Bryan Rust acquitted itself well metrically -- on the ice for a 9-6 edge in shot attempts at five-on-five, better than anyone else -- but they came across to me as being mostly disjointed. I'm talking jellyfish-level disjointed.
We'll see, I guess.
• I've been saying all week that Sid would be missed more on faceoffs than some might realize and, sure enough, the Devils won 33 of 55. Rakell, back at center for the first time in more than a year, was 3-7. Only Kindel had a positive showing at 5-4.
• Clifton scoring in the first game where he replaces Ilya Solovyov wasn't a small thing. More relevant, I'd say, after a couple early lapses, he settled himself on three separate occasions in the defensive zone, by my count, to make a smart, sharp outlet.
"It's something I need to do, for sure," he'd respond when I mentioned that. And after he tried to recall all three -- and eventually described them all -- he'd say, "I have to be making those plays."
He also registered a game-high seven hits.
• Sam Girard had three giveaways. Debut mulligan feels fair.
• The penalty-kill was 5 for 5, but most important within that was that three of the four non-bench minors were avoidable. Two were stick fouls, a third was ... well, Jesper Bratt took a spill, but Kris Letang still didn't need to interfere. Muse doesn't mention penalties often, but he made it a point after this one: "Gotta clean that up."
• Pretty cool to see Pittsburgh's roaring ovation for U.S. Olympic hero Jack Hughes before the anthem. I knew the fans would cheer, but I hadn't foreseen it being long and loud enough to move him to raise his stick twice to acknowledge.
Hughes called it "something I’ll always remember, every time I come back to Pittsburgh."
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. First of many, many, many games in a row.
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