Evgeni Malkin was the Penguins' leading scorer and best player during regular season, and seemed poised to have a major impact on the postseason, too.
And while he has yet to record a point in the Penguins' qualifying-round series against Montreal, which is tied, 1-1, going into Game 3 Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Malkin has at least one thing of considerable value: His coach's unflinching endorsement of his performance so far.
"I think (Malkin) has been good," Mike Sullivan said Tuesday, adding that, "He's not playing a high-risk game. He's playing a straight-ahead game."
Malkin, who has been centering a line with Jason Zucker on his left and Bryan Rust on his right, leads the Penguins with 15 shots on goal in the series. (That also tops the NHL, going into Tuesday's games.) Malkin is the only Penguins player to reach double-figures.
Considering that he scored on 14.6 percent of his shots during the regular season, it seems reasonable to believe that Malkin will be able to put a puck or two behind Canadiens goalie Carey Price before the series ends.
Sullivan certainly doesn't sound as if he'll be surprised if that happens.
"He's generating a significant amount of scoring chances," Sullivan said. "The puck hasn't gone in the net. My discussion with (Malkin) is just to, 'Be sure you stay with it.' It takes that stick-to-itiveness and belief in his overall game and trust in the process and he'll end up on the scoresheet."
• The Penguins have done a lot of things right through the first two games, but there still is considerable room for improvement if they hope to enhance their chances of moving on to Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"Obviously, the power play, we'd like to be more successful on it, that's for sure," Kris Letang said. "It could give us a big advantage in games.
"There are times in the game where we've made a couple of mistakes at the (blue) lines. They have a good transition game, and they can counter pretty quick, so (good) decisions at the lines are pretty important."
Center Teddy Blueger offered a few additions to the list.
"Obviously, we did some good things in both games," he said. "We were able to generate pretty good chances, but limiting odd-man rushes for them as much as we can, their scoring chances ... they have fairly skilled players up front. I think we can do a better of going to their net, too."
• Sidney Crosby scored the Penguins' first goal in each of the first two games, which should be a surprise to absolutely no one who has followed his career.
"He plays his best when the stakes are high," Sullivan said. "He knows what's a stake. He knows what's on the line. He sees the opportunity in front of us, and he gets excited about it and elevates his game. He's got a long history of that.
"He elevates his game when the stakes are high. That's what makes him the player that he is. That's what makes him the leader that he is. That's why he's so important to our hockey team. ... There's no more powerful way to lead than through example and playing the game the right way, and elevating your intensity and your compete level. I think Sid personifies that. "
Crosby's coaches aren't the only ones who recognize and appreciate his talents and intangibles.
"When Sid is leading your team," Letang said. "You know you're in good hands."
• Even though the Penguins have outscored Montreal, 5-4, in the series, they only have four players -- Jake Guentzel, Conor Sheary, Marcus Pettersson and Crosby -- with a positive plus-minus rating, while no fewer than nine of their teammates have a negative number.
Guentzel and Sheary are a team-best plus-3, while The four on the sunny side of that line all are plus-1; Brandon Tanev and Zach Aston-Reese, both minus-2, are at the other end of the spectrum.
• Rookie John Marino is averaging 23:43 of ice time, second only to Letang among Penguins defensemen. And while Marino's career still is in its embryonic stages, it's not unreasonable to believe that he will someday succeed Letang as the cornerstone of the team's defense corps.
"It's incredible," Letang said. "He's been a really important part of our team. He plays a lot of minutes, in a lot of situations. He's a really calm and poised guy. He has all the tools a player can ask for, and I think he's just going to get better and better."
• The Penguins were shorthanded just five times in the first two games, easily the fewest of any club that had played more than once. It helps that Montreal does not tend to draw a lot of penalties, but the Penguins' focus and discipline has been a factor in that, too.
"I'm sure experience helps in that regard," Sullivan said. "We're trying to do everything we can to not beat ourselves, and discipline is an important aspect of it. We're trying to make sure we're responsible with our sticks. We're trying to play between the whistles.
"We're trying to play with emotion, but we don't to cross the line. That's an important aspect of playing at this time of year."
The impressive part of how little time the Penguins have spent in the penalty box is that there have been a lot of power plays handed out around the league in this postseason, perhaps because players have been thrown into high-stakes games after an extended layoff because of the coronavirus pandemic.
"I'm not sure why the amount of penalties have been called to this particular point," Sullivan said. "We'll see how it goes moving forward. All we can do is just play through that process."
• Jonathan Drouin might be Montreal's most gifted forward, but has been a non-factor in the series so far. His most memorable contribution to the proceedings was losing control of the puck on a penalty shot in overtime of Game 1, squandering a chance to lock up a victory for the Canadiens. (They eventually got it, anyway.)
He has the potential to be a difference-maker for Montreal, especially if the games continue to be low-scoring, but Drouin will have to do more than generate one shot every other game if that's going to happen.
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