"We fought," Marcus Pettersson was telling me, "and we found a way."
And just as my jaw lowered to follow up, he interjected, "Again."
Yeah, again.
Maybe this is a perfect time to appreciate that singular sentiment, you know?
Seriously, step back and breathe a bit: Here we are, nearly halfway through this NHL season, and these resilient -- no, relentless -- Penguins are now 19-10-4 following the 5-4 shootout victory over the Kings on this Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, one in which Bryan Rust popped two more goals in regulation, then the prodigious winner on the penalty shot before the standing, raucous crowd of 18,581.
They were down goals. They blew a two-goal lead. And they prevailed.
Yeah, again.
They've logged 27 of their 33 games without one or both of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, including both again in this one because of Malkin's lingering illness. They were also without Patric Hornqvist, Brian Dumoulin and Nick Bjugstad, accounting for a quarter of the roster and $31.7 million in salary-cap hits. They've lost a total of 129 man-games to injury or illness.
They've been down all that talent. And they've produced the NHL's seventh-best record and, to support that it's no fluke, the league's fifth-best goal differential at plus-21.
I've written all this before, in one form or another, but I'm writing it again.
Yeah, again.
Only this time, it'll come with an additional caveat: All of this has also happened while missing Matt Murray.
And it's happened, at least from this perspective, primarily because of the breakout of Tristan Jarry.
To wit:
I've forever expressed unbridled admiration for Anze Kopitar. To me, he's one of the premier players of his generation and, as he demonstrated all evening here, he remains a 200-foot force at age 33.
But that up there, hockey fans, is a goaltender going 3 for 3 against Kopitar in a game-speed breakaway, the resultant penalty shot and, finally, as part of Jarry going 3 for 3 against all of the Kings in the shootout. Right pad. Closed-up five-hole. Glove hand.
"That guy," Rust would tell me of Kopitar, "he's got so many moves, so many ways to beat you."
He does. But he didn't.
"Just staying with him," Jarry would explain of his trifecta. "Making sure I’m keeping the puck between my shoulders, and trying to do my best to make myself look big and give him nothing to shoot at."
Nothing special about it being Kopitar?
"I’m just playing how I normally do on breakaways. I don’t really change for any players. It’s something we practice a lot, and the guys are really good at the breakaways and shootouts. It’s just making sure I learn from what I practice."
Hey, whatever it takes. Because even in the context of conceding four goals -- only one of which I'd pin on Jarry, a boingy rebound of a bad-angle Jeff Carter snap shot that gave a gimme to Kyle Clifford for Los Angeles' third -- it's that level of rising, as he did against Kopitar, that's got this group riding the way it is. There can't be any doubt it's being fueled from the crease out.
And in the event there is ...
"We feel it," Pettersson told me. "We feel the way he's playing. We can feel his confidence."
That stance is shared all over the room, believe me.
Clearly, that carries over to the head coach, as well. Mike Sullivan's started Jarry three games in a row, in five of the past six, eight of the past 11. So while he's steered clear of any grand pronouncements about his No. 1 goaltender, what he's spoken doesn't count anywhere near as much as who he's chosen.
After this one, Sullivan assessed, "I just think Tristan's playing really well right now. He's tracking the puck. His rebound control is great. You know, they had a fair amount of quality chances tonight, and he made some big saves for us. I think our team's competing hard in front of him, but when we have broken down, he's been there to make some huge saves for us."
That's what Sullivan had hoped to see -- and said so -- from Murray, but he wasn't getting it. And with the roster in its current circumstance, he's evidently switched into emergency mode, where he'll go with the goaltender he feels is most capable of coming up with those huge saves. That's been Jarry who, beyond his standard statistical excellence within a 1.92 goals-against average and .937 save percentage, has stopped 84.7 percent of the high-danger scoring chances he's faced. Murray was stopping 82.2 percent.
Another comparison that's even more stark: The average distance of goals scored against Jarry is 19.9 feet. Murray's average: 27.4 feet, worst in the NHL.
There's nothing close here, much less some goaltending controversy.
Here's hoping Sullivan continues not only to get that picture but also to prioritize the now: The Penguins will charter Sunday for Alberta and a three-game Western Canada swing that carries right into the Christmas break. There's every reason, I'd say, to start Jarry both Tuesday night in Calgary against the 8-1-1-rolling Flames, then Friday night in Edmonton against Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the high-scoring Oilers. Murray can have the trip finale the following night in Vancouver -- a fatigue challenge unlike any other in the league -- so he doesn't get buried and so he gets a chance to begin earning his way back into regular starts.
Collect the point most likely to be collected.
This isn't the time to worry about hurting Murray's feelings. There's a whole lot of other hurt that's more meaningful at the moment.
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