He backhands the puck into the Buffalo zone, beats everyone to it as if that'd been the plan all along, bangs big Mattias Samuelsson into the end boards, bullies even bigger Tage Thompson in the corner, beelines to the net, then buries Anthony Mantha's feed by Alex Lyon glove, as top-shelf as it gets.
Not going to lie here: It's been a couple hours since the Penguins carved up the Sabres, 5-2, tonight here at KeyBank Center on Hayes' historic outburst in becoming the seventh player in the NHL's 107-year history to score more than once in the first period of his debut, the third in franchise history to score twice in the full debut along with Robbie Brown in 1987 and Jake Guentzel in 2016 ... and I'm still shaking my head as I was when witnessing both sequences.
Because it wasn't the what. It was the how.
"It was unbelievable," Dan Muse would say with a smile and headshake afterward, as if he was that rare hockey person applying that term with its dictionary-defined intent. "Especially with the day that he's had. He woke up this morning with not a thought of playing a game in the NHL, to travel the way he did, to score the way he did, the first one, the second one, another beautiful one ... the whole game, he was awesome."
Bit of a breath there.
"Yeah, special day for him."
Not even management could know Hayes would've been needed. The morning skate on this day would see Blake Lizotte ruled out because his wife was expecting the couple's first child, Noel Acciari deemed iffy because he'd fallen ill and, within the skate itself, Rickard Rakell left the session due to a lower-body injury. None of the three would be able to play.
Two extra forwards were on hand, but a very rare third extra would be needed. So, because Lizotte and Acciari make up the Penguins' fiery fourth line, it'd be Hayes, who's fit that brand his whole hockey life, getting the 11 a.m. call Wilkes-Barre from Muse and Vukie Mpofu, the Penguins' director of hockey operations. He was a five-hour drive away. And his parents and other family were in Michigan. He contacted them to hurry here, as well.
(Spoiler: They did. Paul, Mandy and little brother Elijah flew in from Detroit.)
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
So Hayes packed up his Wilkes-Barre gear, and off he went, driven by Derek Avery, that team's manager of operations who'd wind up watching this game from the press box.
“It was fine," Hayes would tell me here after the game of the journey. "I was able to sleep for a bit of it. And I didn’t have much time to think about the game which, honestly, was pretty nice. It wasn’t too stressful.”
He was even mindful to remember the team's dress code so, upon arrival near the arena, he somehow strapped on his suit by the time the car made it to the lot around 5 p.m.:
MICHELLE CRECHIOLO / PENGUINS
Then, this with his best bud Rutger McGroarty in the locker room:
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
And soon enough, this:
GETTY
Never mind having gone undrafted, never mind being a bit of a late bloomer at 23, never mind having produced a modest 74 points over parts of three AHL seasons ... he pulls off a living, breathing Hallmark holiday flick?
I had to ask:
“Yeah, yeah, I know it's not that easy," he'd reply to my tongue-in-cheek question. "It's the hardest league in the world for a reason. I was just able to get a couple of lucky bounces early.”
Uh, no. He'd generate six shots, eight attempts, two hits, a takeaway and, in the most general sense, he'd appear dangerous seemingly with every shift. And to stress above all else, he was moving his feet at an above-NHL-average speed throughout.
Just wait a while before wondering how hard this all hit him.
“Right now, I can't really put it into words,” he'd say. “I'm just excited to see my family after they were able to make the trip. So ... I have no words right now. But it was a ton of fun.”
His teammates, a few of whom had been praising his development for months, didn't sound surprised.
"I'm super-excited for him," McGroarty would say. "And honestly, it's so well deserved. I mean, I've seen his grind for about a year and a half now, and he's an incredible hockey player."
Now, look ...
A story's a story, a season's a season, and a career's a career. This was but the first of those. It was a beginning. And whichever way it embarks from here, and it doesn't feel fair to take it further.
But I dare say there's something different about how this one rings in a place like Pittsburgh, where there's long been a sense that the only story being written's the final chapter. Now, it might well be an uplifting chapter to an epic saga, in what's been brought by Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and so many others. But it's still an ending.
This is something else.
This is still Sid and Geno doing most of the scoring, Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang in the back, Bryan Rust having the penalty-killing night of his life here, and a lot of other thirty-somethings doing the heaviest lifting.
At the same time, these were the advanced analytics on this specific game:
HOCKEYSTATCARDS
Look at the three names way at the top, including Ben Kindel after scoring twice. Then Egor Chinakhov just below. Then factor in that Harrison Brunicke, Will Horcoff, Sergei Murashov, Joel Blomqvist, Ville Koivunen, Tristan Broz, Owen Pickering and others are ... knocking, if not yet banging on the figurative door. They'll arrive sooner rather than later.
Ever heard of overlapping storylines?
"We have a lot of different people contributing," Kindel would tell me. "This is fun."
And it's only building. The Penguins are now 29-15-12 at the NHL's three-week Olympic break. They're second in the Metro, a point ahead of the third-place Islanders and five points ahead of the Blue Jackets, the nearest team that's out of the playoff picture. An unfathomable scenario for almost everyone as recently as, oh, September.
Turns out it wouldn't be the last.
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. Heading home today. I'll be back in time for our new Double Shot of Penguins live show, 3:30 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.
THE ASYLUM
Grind: Nothing lights that lamp quite like youth
Avery Hayes' first NHL goal was gorgeous.
His second was ...
... I mean, what's another word for gorgeous?
He backhands the puck into the Buffalo zone, beats everyone to it as if that'd been the plan all along, bangs big Mattias Samuelsson into the end boards, bullies even bigger Tage Thompson in the corner, beelines to the net, then buries Anthony Mantha's feed by Alex Lyon glove, as top-shelf as it gets.
Not going to lie here: It's been a couple hours since the Penguins carved up the Sabres, 5-2, tonight here at KeyBank Center on Hayes' historic outburst in becoming the seventh player in the NHL's 107-year history to score more than once in the first period of his debut, the third in franchise history to score twice in the full debut along with Robbie Brown in 1987 and Jake Guentzel in 2016 ... and I'm still shaking my head as I was when witnessing both sequences.
Because it wasn't the what. It was the how.
"It was unbelievable," Dan Muse would say with a smile and headshake afterward, as if he was that rare hockey person applying that term with its dictionary-defined intent. "Especially with the day that he's had. He woke up this morning with not a thought of playing a game in the NHL, to travel the way he did, to score the way he did, the first one, the second one, another beautiful one ... the whole game, he was awesome."
Bit of a breath there.
"Yeah, special day for him."
Not even management could know Hayes would've been needed. The morning skate on this day would see Blake Lizotte ruled out because his wife was expecting the couple's first child, Noel Acciari deemed iffy because he'd fallen ill and, within the skate itself, Rickard Rakell left the session due to a lower-body injury. None of the three would be able to play.
Two extra forwards were on hand, but a very rare third extra would be needed. So, because Lizotte and Acciari make up the Penguins' fiery fourth line, it'd be Hayes, who's fit that brand his whole hockey life, getting the 11 a.m. call Wilkes-Barre from Muse and Vukie Mpofu, the Penguins' director of hockey operations. He was a five-hour drive away. And his parents and other family were in Michigan. He contacted them to hurry here, as well.
(Spoiler: They did. Paul, Mandy and little brother Elijah flew in from Detroit.)
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
So Hayes packed up his Wilkes-Barre gear, and off he went, driven by Derek Avery, that team's manager of operations who'd wind up watching this game from the press box.
“It was fine," Hayes would tell me here after the game of the journey. "I was able to sleep for a bit of it. And I didn’t have much time to think about the game which, honestly, was pretty nice. It wasn’t too stressful.”
He was even mindful to remember the team's dress code so, upon arrival near the arena, he somehow strapped on his suit by the time the car made it to the lot around 5 p.m.:
MICHELLE CRECHIOLO / PENGUINS
Then, this with his best bud Rutger McGroarty in the locker room:
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
And soon enough, this:
GETTY
Never mind having gone undrafted, never mind being a bit of a late bloomer at 23, never mind having produced a modest 74 points over parts of three AHL seasons ... he pulls off a living, breathing Hallmark holiday flick?
I had to ask:
“Yeah, yeah, I know it's not that easy," he'd reply to my tongue-in-cheek question. "It's the hardest league in the world for a reason. I was just able to get a couple of lucky bounces early.”
Uh, no. He'd generate six shots, eight attempts, two hits, a takeaway and, in the most general sense, he'd appear dangerous seemingly with every shift. And to stress above all else, he was moving his feet at an above-NHL-average speed throughout.
Just wait a while before wondering how hard this all hit him.
“Right now, I can't really put it into words,” he'd say. “I'm just excited to see my family after they were able to make the trip. So ... I have no words right now. But it was a ton of fun.”
His teammates, a few of whom had been praising his development for months, didn't sound surprised.
"I'm super-excited for him," McGroarty would say. "And honestly, it's so well deserved. I mean, I've seen his grind for about a year and a half now, and he's an incredible hockey player."
Now, look ...
A story's a story, a season's a season, and a career's a career. This was but the first of those. It was a beginning. And whichever way it embarks from here, and it doesn't feel fair to take it further.
But I dare say there's something different about how this one rings in a place like Pittsburgh, where there's long been a sense that the only story being written's the final chapter. Now, it might well be an uplifting chapter to an epic saga, in what's been brought by Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and so many others. But it's still an ending.
This is something else.
This is still Sid and Geno doing most of the scoring, Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang in the back, Bryan Rust having the penalty-killing night of his life here, and a lot of other thirty-somethings doing the heaviest lifting.
At the same time, these were the advanced analytics on this specific game:
HOCKEYSTATCARDS
Look at the three names way at the top, including Ben Kindel after scoring twice. Then Egor Chinakhov just below. Then factor in that Harrison Brunicke, Will Horcoff, Sergei Murashov, Joel Blomqvist, Ville Koivunen, Tristan Broz, Owen Pickering and others are ... knocking, if not yet banging on the figurative door. They'll arrive sooner rather than later.
Ever heard of overlapping storylines?
"We have a lot of different people contributing," Kindel would tell me. "This is fun."
And it's only building. The Penguins are now 29-15-12 at the NHL's three-week Olympic break. They're second in the Metro, a point ahead of the third-place Islanders and five points ahead of the Blue Jackets, the nearest team that's out of the playoff picture. An unfathomable scenario for almost everyone as recently as, oh, September.
Turns out it wouldn't be the last.
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. Heading home today. I'll be back in time for our new Double Shot of Penguins live show, 3:30 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.
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