From the first drill of the first day of the Penguins' training camp, Jack Johnson had been anchored to a defensive pairing alongside Justin Schultz. And the twofold thinking behind it was sound:
1. Keep Johnson on his natural left side.
2. Get Johnson acclimated without unnatural expectations.
It worked, too, as any witness to the entirety of camp and the preseason would attest. Johnson and Schultz were communicating, verbally and through hockey sense, as well as anyone on the corps. As Sergei Gonchar, who's worked most closely with Johnson, would tell me in Detroit after one of those exhibitions, "We like what they've done together, and we like where Jack is. We're not putting too much on his plate, not asking him to change anything. He just needs to be himself."
And then, this past weekend, after the preseason was complete, seemingly out of nowhere, Mike Sullivan, Jacques Martin and the staff changed the bottom two pairings to have Johnson alongside Olli Maatta, a move that required Johnson to shift to the right side.
So much for acclimation, right?
Johnson and Maatta were the Penguins' most suspect pairing in the season-opening all-skate with the Capitals, and they were the primary -- though hardly isolated -- culprits in the 5-1 fall to the babyfaced Canadiens on this Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, both earning prominent minuses in Montreal scoring both of the game's first-period goals.
What's more, digging into advanced analytics, at five-on-five, Johnson and Maatta were on the ice for one scoring chance for the Penguins -- an errant slap shot from the left dot by Maatta -- and an eye-popping seven scoring chances for the Canadiens.
I spoke with each man afterward one-on-one. They reacted about as one might expect.
"We all have to play better," Maatta told me. "We're all pretty easy to play against right now. We've got to tighten up, play smarter."
Everyone, he meant. And he's right.
When I pressed about his pairing in particular, he added, "I'm sure we'll see it on video Monday. But I know right now that we've got to be better."
Johnson seemed amply aware, too.
"We're giving up too many good chances," he told me. "It's the little things that add up. Having sticks in the right places. Not letting guys behind you. All those things."
All those and maybe more, upon reviewing those first two goals:
That's Brendan Gallagher's putback at 11:08, following a high, difficult lateral pass in the neutral zone from Evgeni Malkin to Johnson. By the time the puck settled, neither Maatta nor Johnson could recover.
This is on Malkin for attempting the old Larry Murphy dump toward a defenseman exiting the zone -- seriously, what? -- but also on Johnson for not simply letting it be. Both defensemen always need to be aware of being the last line, and their angle was far more on the aggressive.
"It was up in the air, I tried to find it," Johnson said. "Some guys were whacking at it. You don't really know where it goes."
Malkin wasn't available for comment.
The next was much clearer-cut:
That's Paul Byron scoring the first of his two goals, splitting Maatta and Johnson before dismembering Matt Murray with a violent backhand maneuver at 15:56. Maatta and especially Johnson again have an all-forward flow even though the Canadiens' Artturi Lehkonen had visible possession before springing Byron.
"It was a breakdown," Johnson said. "But we had breakdowns all night."
They did. But it won't hurt anyone to address all of them and, from there, to make adjustments beyond mere finger-wagging. And I'd start by reuniting Johnson and Schultz.
Juuso Riikola?
Eh, not yet. Long season ahead. Giving up on any one of the current top six, even for a spell, risks ruining a real chance at depth.
But just as there was no reason to break up Johnson and Schultz on the eve of real games, there's no reason not to give them an opportunity now to add stability. That would put Maatta with Jamie Oleksiak, who'd also have to shift from left to right, but he's shown to be fine with that previously in this system, and the same can't be said for Johnson.
I asked Sullivan afterward if part of his solution might be altering lines and pairings, including revisiting defense pairings from the preseason:
"Sure," he replied. "We'll look at everything. We'll put everything on the table, try to digest it, see where we go from here."
• Sullivan is spectacular at sending singular messages. It never takes much, for example, to figure out his postgame theme directly to the players even before he speaks at the podium -- and he was in prime form after this one, as Cody Tucker describes -- because they'll repeat it en masse.
"We're thinking too much about scoring," one veteran told me.
"We're just focused on goals," another said.
Be very sure that, with four idle days between now and the Golden Knights' arrival here Thursday night, Sullivan will pound it and pound it all week long. He'll actually seize upon it as a teaching moment, as he's done in the past and, specifically, as he did following last season's second game, an even more embarrassing 10-1 loss in Chicago.
The response to that one: A complete clampdown, 4-0 over the Predators.
• Malkin was all-around miserable again, too, as Chris Bradford details.
Like I said, there can't be isolated culprits here. Not with so many to name. But Malkin's a known commodity, to put it mildly, and he'll bounce back. The same can't be spoken of a fledgling defensive pairing, founded on a fragile newcomer. One situation will straighten itself out, and the other will take work.
• Here's betting Sullivan would embrace any chance to break up Malkin and Phil Kessel. He's never had an affinity for bunching up his stars, and he proved that beyond a doubt in the most recent playoffs. But, as bad as Malkin's been -- and Kessel hasn't been much better -- this isn't the time. Too soon to kick up that kind of fuss.
If they like playing together -- and they do -- challenge them to do a heck of a lot better if they'd like to continue.
• One could either knife through all 11 goals Murray's allowed and find excuses, legit or otherwise, for each one. Or one can succinctly suggest that 11 is just too damned many and that the occasional big save wouldn't exactly hurt the cause.
It'll tick people off, as ever, that Murray didn't take too much issue with his performance ...
... but that's nowhere near as important as the effect his stance takes on him. Our opinion of his mindset doesn't matter. Only the actual mindset does. And it's worked for him many times before.
• Worst thing for Murray won't be those four idle days, but that they'll be followed by another civic lovefest for Marc-Andre Fleury. A week of piping-hot goaltending takes awaits, and heaven only knows how that'll affect the crowd dynamic for the game.
• Would anyone care that I kind of liked Daniel Sprong's work in this game?
No?
OK, well, anyway, he skated authoritatively, made himself useful at both ends, and it was his hard zone entry that set the stage for Riley Sheahan's second-period goal, the only one the Penguins would get. He also distributed well to his linemates and at least was conscientious on the backcheck.
• I was a little rough on this no-name Montreal blue line in the pregame Three Keys, so I'll use this space to eat some corbeau: Jeff Petry and Mike Reilly showed solid wheels and active sticks in keeping Carey Price's view clear for most of his 21 saves, and the Canadiens' defense contributed 12 of the team's 22 blocked shots.
That included seven in the first period, which, from this perspective, defined what kind of night it would be for the Penguins' forwards. Because it wasn't just one of the world's premier goaltenders they'd have to beat.
"It's definitely huge to get those blocks," Price said. "I kind of counted a couple of them in the first period that could have been a game-changer."
"That's commitment," Claude Julien said, using a word that couldn't have crossed his counterpart's mind on this night. "There's a big commitment here. There's pride. The quicker you get in those shot areas, the less dangerous it becomes. We're closing quicker and, because we're closing quicker, pucks are hitting us."
• I won't take this back: Only the Senators will finish below the Canadiens in the standings. But it's still healthy for hockey's most iconic franchise to at least begin to see a path back to contention. Speed, smarts and defending, all through youth, is a fine start.
• Moment of the night from the home perspective came not so much from Kris Letang producing his 441st point -- assisting on Sheahan's goal -- to pass Paul Coffey as the franchise's all-time leading scorer among defensemen, but later, when the team played a classy video tribute and brought the crowd to a standing, roaring ovation.
It's a tremendous achievement. Coffey held the record for 27 years, and it's hard to imagine it being broken, if only because the salary cap era won't easily allow a player of his caliber to stay in one place for too long.
As I approached Letang afterward, Dana Heinze, the equipment manager, was presenting him with the taped-up, marked-up puck as a keepsake. It was easy to tell how deeply Letang was moved.
"This didn't come in the right game, I guess," Letang lamented. "But it's a great honor. I've been here my whole career. I've played with great players. To get my name up there with Paul Coffey, that's pretty cool. It's crazy, really. You grow up, and you just dream of playing in the NHL. Now I have my name next to Paul Coffey. It's pretty exciting."
• Four. Idle. Days.
Might as well make them count.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
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Penguins vs. Canadiens, PPG Paints Arena, Oct. 6, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS[/caption]
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