The final few ticks were coming off the clock, the capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden stood and roared, and the Rangers' most feared sniper, Artemi Panarin, finessed to the top of the circle to fire away ...
... only to fell poor P.O Joseph, who'd purposely put himself, not once but twice, into that puck's path to ensure it'd never reach Alex Nedeljković.
The horn sounded. The Penguins prevailed, 3-2. But Joseph stayed down. Like, really down.
"What a play," Nedeljković would tell me later. "What a block. What a huge moment for us."
No doubt. And yet, it'd somehow be topped, at least from my perspective. Because, rather than gathering for the standard hugs and handshakes back near the goaltender's crease, Bryan Rust would whirl around and slam his stick to the ice in Joseph's direction and vocally express his appreciation. Rickard Rakell skated over to do something similar, and he and Rust hoisted Joseph up to his feet.
And the kid ... looked like this:
GETTY
That's not a smile, my friends. That's a baby-faced beam.
"We won the game," Joseph would tell me later about that riveting reaction. "I left it all out there. The other stuff doesn't matter. We wanted to win this game."
My goodness, did they ever.
And he'll be OK?
"We won the game."
Another beam.
Elsewhere in that locker room, there were more icebags to be found than at a keg party. Ankles here, knees there, the ice was everywhere. As were the limps and other awkward movements.
My favorite scene: All 6 feet, 7 inches of new guy Vincent Desharnais stood up at his stall, sucked in a breath as big as his frame, and let it out loud enough to be heard across the room, accompanied by a big beam of his own.
So, I had to ask, one of those, huh?
“Oh, yeah,” he came right back. “But good.”
Good?
Oh, no, don’t stop at good. Not when this performance by the Penguins, this passionate, put-it-all-together clinic on how to be their peak collective at all points on the rink ... this was as good as it’s gotten in this strange season, and I say that even without taking into account that both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkinwere out with injuries.
Through the second intermission, the rink was so terribly tilted that the Penguins led on the scoreboard by a goal but also in shots at 26-17, shot attempts at a mind-bending 54-28, and high-danger chances at 10-1.
They also tied the score, then took the lead on two team-oriented sequences, both orchestrated beautifully by Rust:
The third period was the polar opposite statistically -- the Rangers for-real registered all seven shots and all five high-danger chances, in addition to dominating in shot attempts at 32-3 -- but ... hey, as a great hockey man used to famously say, you had to be here to believe it. Because I happen to share the consensus that the Penguins never lost their structure or poise in any of the three zones.
"Obviously, we played a lot of that period in our end and had the two big penalty-kills," Rust would tell me, referring to the Rangers' only two power plays of the game coming in the final seven minutes. "I thought we played that really hard. We didn’t give them too many good looks, and I think we kept them to the outside and defended really hard.”
I told him I sensed that they never really seemed fazed.
"It totally felt that way on the bench, believe me."
I could cite more statistics here, like how half of the Penguins' 22 blocks on the evening came in that period, but I'll instead just share this photo of Acciari taking this baby to the belly in those same final seconds:
GETTY
Or this one of Desharnais locked in on one of his team-high four blocks:
GETTY
"Guys were sacrificing their bodies there at the end," Nedeljković would say. "It was awesome to see. I think one shot got through and that was after maybe three or four attempts by them and us getting in front of it. It was the usual guys like Cookie and Rusty, even P.O. Vinny was awesome. He had a couple of kick saves in front of me."
It was, across the scope of all 19 participants, gutty beyond any words I’d have to describe anything this side of a successful Stanley Cup playoff effort. And again, this is all independent of not having Sid or Geno.
“I think it just speaks volumes to the type of people we have in our dressing room," Sullivan would say before motioning toward my right, where the players' fathers on the annual 'dads trip' were standing and listening. "You can thank that group right over there cause our players, they’re a reflection of those guys. They’re great kids, they compete hard and they don’t look for excuses. This was a game that we potentially could have, but we didn’t. We battled and we found a way. I thought our competitive spirit was as good as it’s been.”
How, after Sid’s overtime goal had salvaged an uplifting ending to that seven-game road trip, the team met afterward and talked about squeezing everything they could from the final four games before the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off break?
How Rust told me they needed to take seven or even all eight points?
How Kevin Hayes told me they'd be treating this like an elimination week?
Well, then … this is 2-0-1 since Utah, and seven points are sitting on that figurative table tomorrow night in PhiladelphIa.
I reminded Rust of this.
"We fought hard," he'd respond. "We've got to keep going."
I reminded Hayes, too:
"I thought we battled pretty hard," he'd respond. "We're missing some key players, obviously, but the group stuck with it. We went down early, but I thought we stuck together, played as a unit and played really well defensively. Probably want a little more offense in the third, but maybe we're saving it for the next game."
He laughed a little.
"Yeah, that's the thing: We've got to do this all over again."
THE ASYLUM
DK: Wow, performance of the year!
The final few ticks were coming off the clock, the capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden stood and roared, and the Rangers' most feared sniper, Artemi Panarin, finessed to the top of the circle to fire away ...
... only to fell poor P.O Joseph, who'd purposely put himself, not once but twice, into that puck's path to ensure it'd never reach Alex Nedeljković.
The horn sounded. The Penguins prevailed, 3-2. But Joseph stayed down. Like, really down.
"What a play," Nedeljković would tell me later. "What a block. What a huge moment for us."
No doubt. And yet, it'd somehow be topped, at least from my perspective. Because, rather than gathering for the standard hugs and handshakes back near the goaltender's crease, Bryan Rust would whirl around and slam his stick to the ice in Joseph's direction and vocally express his appreciation. Rickard Rakell skated over to do something similar, and he and Rust hoisted Joseph up to his feet.
And the kid ... looked like this:
GETTY
That's not a smile, my friends. That's a baby-faced beam.
"We won the game," Joseph would tell me later about that riveting reaction. "I left it all out there. The other stuff doesn't matter. We wanted to win this game."
My goodness, did they ever.
And he'll be OK?
"We won the game."
Another beam.
Elsewhere in that locker room, there were more icebags to be found than at a keg party. Ankles here, knees there, the ice was everywhere. As were the limps and other awkward movements.
My favorite scene: All 6 feet, 7 inches of new guy Vincent Desharnais stood up at his stall, sucked in a breath as big as his frame, and let it out loud enough to be heard across the room, accompanied by a big beam of his own.
So, I had to ask, one of those, huh?
“Oh, yeah,” he came right back. “But good.”
Good?
Oh, no, don’t stop at good. Not when this performance by the Penguins, this passionate, put-it-all-together clinic on how to be their peak collective at all points on the rink ... this was as good as it’s gotten in this strange season, and I say that even without taking into account that both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were out with injuries.
Through the second intermission, the rink was so terribly tilted that the Penguins led on the scoreboard by a goal but also in shots at 26-17, shot attempts at a mind-bending 54-28, and high-danger chances at 10-1.
They also tied the score, then took the lead on two team-oriented sequences, both orchestrated beautifully by Rust:
The third period was the polar opposite statistically -- the Rangers for-real registered all seven shots and all five high-danger chances, in addition to dominating in shot attempts at 32-3 -- but ... hey, as a great hockey man used to famously say, you had to be here to believe it. Because I happen to share the consensus that the Penguins never lost their structure or poise in any of the three zones.
"Obviously, we played a lot of that period in our end and had the two big penalty-kills," Rust would tell me, referring to the Rangers' only two power plays of the game coming in the final seven minutes. "I thought we played that really hard. We didn’t give them too many good looks, and I think we kept them to the outside and defended really hard.”
I told him I sensed that they never really seemed fazed.
"It totally felt that way on the bench, believe me."
I could cite more statistics here, like how half of the Penguins' 22 blocks on the evening came in that period, but I'll instead just share this photo of Acciari taking this baby to the belly in those same final seconds:
GETTY
Or this one of Desharnais locked in on one of his team-high four blocks:
GETTY
"Guys were sacrificing their bodies there at the end," Nedeljković would say. "It was awesome to see. I think one shot got through and that was after maybe three or four attempts by them and us getting in front of it. It was the usual guys like Cookie and Rusty, even P.O. Vinny was awesome. He had a couple of kick saves in front of me."
It was, across the scope of all 19 participants, gutty beyond any words I’d have to describe anything this side of a successful Stanley Cup playoff effort. And again, this is all independent of not having Sid or Geno.
“I think it just speaks volumes to the type of people we have in our dressing room," Sullivan would say before motioning toward my right, where the players' fathers on the annual 'dads trip' were standing and listening. "You can thank that group right over there cause our players, they’re a reflection of those guys. They’re great kids, they compete hard and they don’t look for excuses. This was a game that we potentially could have, but we didn’t. We battled and we found a way. I thought our competitive spirit was as good as it’s been.”
Been that way for a bit now.
Remember Salt Lake City?
How, after Sid’s overtime goal had salvaged an uplifting ending to that seven-game road trip, the team met afterward and talked about squeezing everything they could from the final four games before the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off break?
How Rust told me they needed to take seven or even all eight points?
How Kevin Hayes told me they'd be treating this like an elimination week?
Well, then … this is 2-0-1 since Utah, and seven points are sitting on that figurative table tomorrow night in PhiladelphIa.
I reminded Rust of this.
"We fought hard," he'd respond. "We've got to keep going."
I reminded Hayes, too:
"I thought we battled pretty hard," he'd respond. "We're missing some key players, obviously, but the group stuck with it. We went down early, but I thought we stuck together, played as a unit and played really well defensively. Probably want a little more offense in the third, but maybe we're saving it for the next game."
He laughed a little.
"Yeah, that's the thing: We've got to do this all over again."
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