DALLAS -- From any frozen pond to any post-midnight beer league to a frenzied "playoff-like atmosphere," as Carl Hagelin was describing American Airlines Center on this mid-February Friday night, any hockey coach's chief admonition to a player defensively can be chopped down to two words: Get back.
Because defense, as with most sports, is usually about effort.
Except when it isn't.
The Penguins did a whole lot right in this 4-3 shootout loss to the Stars, a dynamic game decided when Tyler Seguin was the only man to convert, and even his never dented the back of Matt Murray's net ...
... but also a game that just as easily could be defined by Justin Schultz tying the score with 1:13 left after the visitors huffed and puffed for the final few minutes and at long last pushed another puck past Kari Lehtonen:
They sounded plenty pleased about it, too.
"That's a good point because that's a good hockey team over there," Jamie Oleksiak was telling me afterward, and this from the unique perspective of having been employed by both this winter. "We had to fight out there for everything, and we did. We earned that."
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