RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jake Guentzel reports for duty with the Penguins each day with the understanding that, on one hand, he'll be skating alongside the NHL's greatest player and thus will be given great chances to succeed and, on the other hand ... yeah ... he'd damned well better.
A dream job doesn't mean much if it doesn't last.
I mean, this right here ...
... that's got to be a goal every time, right?
Sidney Crosby's virtuoso natural hat trick of primary assists, if one could call it that, pushed his team past the Hurricanes, 3-0, Saturday night at PNC Arena, and through to its first three-game winning streak since October. And that beautiful sequence up there brought the second goal, three minutes into the second period, that basically defined the outcome.
Seriously, check out all that red. Every Carolina skater on the ice is in the frame. And yet, Crosby slyly plucks the puck out of traffic at one edge of the net -- a one-handed poke to himself, no less -- then keeps his feet moving to pull away from his still-pal Jordan Staal, fixes his eyes on Guentzel and passes through two other outreached sticks ... my goodness, right onto Guentzel's tape.
I refuse to keep writing here if you don't watch that last part again at least a couple more times:
OK, all good?
Still and all, Guentzel's got to put it away, and he does so over Curtis McElhinney's blocker but also avoiding Bryan Rust in the line of fire. And that's not a gimme, not at any level of the sport.
Neither was Guentzel's second goal ...
... that required a much more artistic finish but was accompanied by the same pressure, as Phil Kessel had gained the zone before a change, spun back, dished to Crosby, and Crosby again had to navigate two intersecting Carolina sticks to find Guentzel's tape anew. And Guentzel rather than just banging at it as someone else might, collects it, keeps his chin up and scorches McElhinney's left shoulder for the top shelf.
There's chemistry, and there's trust. The latter comes from finishing. It comes from rewarding the linemate for the linemate's quality work. So, as easy as it is to laud Crosby for having set up nine of Guentzel's 15 goals this season -- eight of those on primary assists -- it's got to be understood that none of it happens, including Crosby putting in those huge efforts to pass, if the deal isn't sealed.
Guentzel's only 24. That's a lot to put on a kid. I asked him about this:
"I’ve always felt that those two guys, since the first time we put them together, have had a lot of chemistry. They’ve had some magic," Mike Sullivan would say. "Jake is a guy who's got a high hockey IQ. He thinks the game on a high level. He's got good instincts, he finds the soft spots, and he's got the ability to finish."
Bryan Rust, the right winger du jour, has been a snazzy fit of late. And he's taking the same approach.
"When Sid's passing like that, the way he did tonight," Rust told me, "you make sure your stick's down and you're ready. And I mean ready to shoot."
Which reminds, me, I almost forgot this one:
That was Crosby's assist for the lone goal of the first period, finished deftly by Kris Letang but begun by a grown man gliding on his knees.
Letang was ready, too.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Play-by-play
• Video highlights
• NHL scoreboard
• NHL standings
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Sidney Crosby
Penguins center
Nobody combines skating/creating better.
2. Matt Murray
Penguins goaltender
Something to be spoken for a 39-save shutout, including 4 for 4 on breakaways or partial breaks.
3. Jake Guentzel
Penguins left winger
All that, and his dad, Mike, was in the house.
THE INJURIES
• Jamie Oleksiak, defenseman, missed his second game with a concussion. There was no update on his status, and there's no timetable for his return.
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to be out until mid-February with a fractured leg.
THE GOOD
Murray's always been a bit strange in this regard: When he's at his worst, he reacts slowly to shots and too quickly to loose pucks. When he's at his best, he's the precise opposite.
Here, purely for artistic purposes at a glance, is a four-save synopsis of both those elements in this game:
Get the picture?
Take that, multiply it by a bunch, and he looked like the best version of himself. And he has ever since his return a week ago, by the way, stopping 108 of 112 shots for an absurd .964 save percentage in those three starts.
I asked Murray how much that means to him heading into this break:
I then asked Sullivan, who, earlier in the day here, made clear he'd like to see Murray and Casey DeSmith decide for him who gets the bulk of the starts after the break, how much he liked what he saw:
This much is certain now: All this inconsistency, all this fragility that had been plaguing the Penguins all winter suddenly went poof as soon as their goaltenders began actually tending goal. It always, always starts there.
THE BAD
A break? Now? Do they have to?
Well, yeah, they really do, and not just because the NHL mandates it. These were six games in nine days just now, as well as 12 in December's 22 days. And just before that, they'd flown out to Winnipeg and Denver.
That grind coinciding with the Penguins' best hockey of the season -- beyond the streak, they're 8-2-1 in the past 11 -- was the focal point of Sullivan's postgame speech to his players.
"I think there's significance to winning a few in a row here, but also gaining points along the way in a lot of games," Sullivan said. "As I told those guys in the room, our guys deserve a lot of credit for how hard they've played and how focused they've been through this stretch. They've played a lot of hockey in a short stretch, and they continued to play hard night in and night out."
At 18-12-6, they're back at the critical eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, too.
The captain clearly appreciated all of this, as well.
"It's good," Crosby told me. "You want to have a good feeling going into the break. These past three games we've played here were pretty tight hockey games, and you could tell our mentality was right where it needs to be. Sometimes, that last game before a break, that can be difficult because guys are already thinking about getting a rest. I thought we did good with our focus. And we can build off this when we get back."
And no regrets, I asked, about the timing of the break?
He just grinned. None at all.
THE PLAY
It probably shouldn't be lost within this three-game winning streak that the Penguins' penalty-killing was perfect: 11 for 11 through the streak, 4 for 4 against Carolina while conceding one whole shot, that one in the third period.
So, in recognition of that, rather than pinpointing more of Crosby's playmaking, here's something comparatively super-dull:
That's Rust forcing the Hurricanes back into a direction they've got no wish to take ... once ... twice ... then a third time. It's not as hockey-sexy as, say, going horizontal to block a shot, but it's doubly effective. Nobody's power play matters in the slightest if it can't escape their own zone.
"We've been trying to put as much pressure as we can up ice, try to disrupt their breakout as much as we can," Rust replied when I asked about that scene up there. "I think that's key for us. If we can get them to circle back one, two, even three times, they can get a little discombobulated. That gives us a better chance to defend them even when the puck does make it back toward our end."
Overall, the Penguins' PK has been quietly terrific: Fifth overall in the NHL at 83.5 percent. On the road, they're No. 1 at 88.2 percent.
THE CALL
The Hurricanes had a goal overturned in the first period, but it wasn't remotely controversial, as Dougie Hamilton's floater clearly clanged off the crossbar.
If any call was controversial, it was Rod Brind'Amour's curious choice of Staal to contest Crosby at every opportunity from the opening draw onward.
That might have been a fun assignment a few years ago, but Staal can't come close to keeping up with his old friend anymore, and it showed. He registered a seismic check early on Brian Dumoulin, but otherwise was seen only in chasing the play all over the rink, often after his opponents had already raised their arms. What's more, Brind'Amour picked this game to create a new top line of Staal between two young scoring wingers, Andrei Svechnikov and Jordan Martinook, neither of whom were going to be able to help him defensively.
In 13:14 of ice time before leaving late in the second period with a confirmed head injury -- he's had concussion issues of late -- Staal wound up with a minus-3 rating, a 2-8 record on faceoffs, and he was on the ice for seven high-danger scoring chances for the Penguins, most of anyone on his team despite his short night.
Asked if Staal will miss significant time, Brind'Amour answered, "I'm not sure of the extent of it."
[caption id="attachment_743139" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
Juuso Riikola collides with the Hurricanes' Jordan Staal in the first period. - AP[/caption]
THE OTHER SIDE
No one guns the puck more often than the Hurricanes, averaging an NHL-high 37.5 shots per game. So when they mustered one on Murray in the opening nine minutes, that was maybe the most encouraging sign possible that the Penguins would be fully engaged. And that Carolina was on its way to further frustration, now 2-6-1 this month while scoring one or fewer goals five times.
"We probably deserved better with our start tonight for all the chances we had, but it didn't happen," Brind'Amour said. "For me, what summed it up tonight was that our power play was terrible. And that's our best players. That's the time they need to make plays."
On the bright side, the Hurricanes will, for the first time since relocating from Hartford in 1996, wear the Whalers' classic green uniforms tonight. They'll do it on one other occasion, in Boston, later this season. It's part of the NHL's alternate sweater program, and it capitalizes on the Whalers remaining one of the league's best sellers all these years later.
THE SCHEDULE
The four-day Christmas break begins Sunday. The Penguins won’t hit the ice again until Thursday for the morning skate in advance of the game that night against the Red Wings at PPG Paints Arena. As for me, I'm flying down to New Orleans for football.
THE COVERAGE
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