Good Friday morning!
• Sidney Crosby didn’t produce a solitary point. Neither did Rickard Rakell. Nor Erik Karlsson. Nor Kris Letang. Nor Bryan Rust, out serving a suspension.
Evgeni Malkin?
One assist. This one:
Right. He pretty much just peeled back the curtain for Egor Chinakhov to do some magic.
And the sum total of all that, somehow, was that the Penguins absolutely blasted the Blackhawks, 6-2, tonight at PPG Paints Arena, this courtesy of a goal and two assists from a 31-year-old reclamation project in Anthony Mantha … two more goals from a 26-year-old two-time castoff in Connor Dewar … another by an 18-year-old who watched 10 other prospects selected before him in the NHL Draft this past summer in Ben Kindel … another by a 28-year-old defenseman who couldn’t crack this level until a couple years ago in Ryan Shea … and, lest I forget it, the one by Chinakhov, whose career might as well have been a cadaver at age 24 after four-plus flailing seasons in Columbus.
Ten different players DID have points. And the team totaled 44 shots on Chicago’s poor Arvid Soderblom. And since the start of the Penguins’ 12-2-2 post-Christmas tear, they’ve gotten goals from a mindblowing 19 skaters. As in, more than they’re permitted to dress for any game.
My friends, when stuff like that starts unfolding as a matter of course … something’s afoot.
I’m not sure exactly what just yet. But it’s … something.
Because what we’re all witnessing now, beyond these Penguins blowing to bits any and all premature burials from this past summer, beyond their 27-14-11 record and second-place standing in the Metro, beyond their five-game winning streak that’s the longest active in the league … is that it’s been way more about the how than the what.
“That’s a massive part of why we’re winning,” Mantha would say after this. “I think everyone in the offensive zone’s kinda creating chances.”
Rutger McGroarty, freshly back after a month lost to a concussion, took that further in saying of a semi-slow start through the first intermission, “Everybody just knew we had more to give and, overall, we started stacking a lot of shifts. We’re a really scary team when we can start stacking shifts and getting changes in the O-zone and hemming them in.”
Scary might seem over the top, but math doesn’t lie: In this five-game winning streak, including the four out west, the Penguins have an aggregate advantage of 25-10. Since Christmas, that’s 65-35. And for the full season, the plus-21 goal differential’s sixth-best in the league.
And even then, again, it’s been more about the how.
In the Chinakhov sequence illustrated above, Malkin’s spinning assist gets preceded by Parker Wotherspoon crushing Chicago’s Tyler Bertuzzi on the near boards, then gets punctuated by Chinakhov doing terrible things to the two Blackhawks in his path.
It’s everything that’s great about hockey in a snapshot.
A hat trick of additional examples:
I’m probably capable of poetry when it comes to praising Kindel anymore, but the truth is, this play comes about principally because McGroarty had earlier punched the clock on the same shift with a hellacious forecheck for which the Blackhawks had no answer. The Wotherspoon keep’s smart, Mantha’s saucer through traffic couldn’t be sweeter, but the opponents had zip left because of the other youngster.
I spent a couple minutes one-on-one with McGroarty afterward to take his temp amid what’s no doubt been an exasperating few months:
Good, good kid.
The next example:
Wow, where to start on that one?
One place might be four different players touching that puck in a span of 17 seconds to cover all 200 vertical feet of ice. Hardly a common sight at the highest level of the sport.
But the highlight’s the precious timing between Mantha’s heavy rush across center red and Kindel springing him for that breakaway … yeah, just before he’d be offside by a mile and a half.
I couldn’t help but bring this up with the big man:
A little humor never hurts.
Last one:
Not much to add here. Cool to see Ilya Solovyov, who had a terrific debut in general, get the primary assist, but that’s all Shea, blistering that thing as if he’d been venting for not having scored since October, blissfully rewarded for being the team leader with a plus-21 rating.
So, how’s this happening?
Answer: All of the above, plus special teams, plus goaltending, plus an unwavering commitment to defending. And defending hard.
“We’re blocking enough shots, playing compact in our zone,” as Mantha would elaborate. “Then the goalies, when they have to make the saves, they’re making the saves. And we’re controlling the puck for most of the night, so that helps, obviously. All that together, that’s how we’re managing to do it.”
• Thanks for reading, as always. I’ll have Site Stuff tomorrow, then cover Penguins vs. Rangers right back here with the 3:30 p.m. matinee.