Awesome. Now do it again.
Do it at practice Thursday in Cranberry, and no, Mike Sullivan's not skipping one for Thanksgiving. Do it Friday night in Boston. Do it Saturday night back here at PPG Paints Arena. Then do it in Winnipeg. Do it in Denver. Do it against all four of those formidable opponents, owners of a combined 45-24-12 record, and then do it beyond November. Do it through the full 82.
Because that's where these Penguins stand right now.
Sorry, don't want to be that guy, but the saddest aspect of this team's place in the Eastern Conference standings at the NHL's precise quarter-pole is that nothing gets moved much by this sigh-of-relief 5-1 rout of the Stars. It just doesn't. And truth be told, neither do I.
Sidney Crosby being back and instantly brilliant?
No departure from the norm there.
Patric Hornqvist bulldozing through the crease?
Ditto.
Even if there were several facets that were bona fide better than anything witnessed through that 1-7-2 free fall -- there were a few, and I'll get to them eventually -- the Penguins themselves would probably do best to carry that Buffalo debacle with them for a good while, if not the next four months. Because that's what worked here. I'm sure of it. That's why 3-0 at the first intermission felt like a tie, and they kept playing like it. That's why the focus, the fire never wavered.
Let's put this into mathematical perspective: The 2017-18 Penguins finished 47-29-6, good for 100 points and fifth in the conference. The bottom playoff qualifier from the East, the Devils, had 97 points and squeaked in by a single point, so every single one of those counts. That's the bar.
Well, to achieve 100 points, the current Penguins, now 8-8-4 for 19 points, essentially need to go 40-21-1 the rest of the way -- skimping on overtime/shootout losses for mathematical convenience -- to achieve 100 points.
Right. Wow.
It's not unthinkable. It's still a talented team, to say the least. But another significant slump like this one, even half as long, and the chances keep right on shrinking.
I asked Sullivan about what this one evening might mean within what lies ahead:
I asked Jack Johnson, too.
"We do have a lot of good teams coming up, but this was a good team tonight, too," he replied. "We're not worried so much about the opponent as we are about how we're playing. This was the most complete game we've played all year, probably. Like Coach told us after the game, we've got to keep building on it. Build, build, build. And we will. The good thing is, there's a lot of hockey left to be played."
• Giving credit where due, Part 1: Casey DeSmith stuck it to us, didn't he?
No, he wasn't tested a ton, considering the Penguins at one point had four goals when the Stars had four shots. He'd wind up with 18 saves and, for the most part, didn't exactly have to sweat profusely.
Still, he had a couple beauties in there, headlined by this moving blocker on Tyler Seguin's breakaway backhander early in the second:
Sullivan cited that afterward, saying, "We get a big save at a key time there," and he was right. The score was 3-0, and the slightest crack in the door would have conjured up memories of Monday.
"Well, it's about time," DeSmith would say with a smile of stopping Seguin. "I haven't had much luck on breakaways this year. It's something I've been working on, so I'm happy I made this one."
I'd hoped to see Matt Murray start this game. Put that in writing, too. I'll stand by the broader stance that this team needs Murray to make the playoffs, never mind contending, and that he's got to be back sooner rather than later. But it's equally easy to respect Sullivan's choice for this game, in light of the result and in light of DeSmith rewarding the faith.
• DeSmith told me something hilarious: As Seguin was storming up ice toward him, he thought it was Seguin's linemate, Alexander Radulov.
Yeah, even though Radulov's a lefty.
"No idea why, but I'm thinking Radulov the whole way," DeSmith told me. "And Radulov's got that backhand move that Seguin used, so maybe that helped in some weird way."
• Giving credit where due, Part 2: Sullivan practiced what he preached in terms of tinkering with his system, at least defensively. And it worked.
The Penguins modified their breakouts to have the weak-side winger hang around a little longer, swinging back through the middle, rather than bolting out of the zone at the first chance. This achieves a couple things:
1. The first pass no longer needs to be a rink-wide masterpiece that survives choppy ice. It can be tape-to-tape, with the target so much closer.
2. The pack moves out of the zone more tightly, allowing for quicker recovery in the event anything goes awry.
Good for him. Change can't come easily with a personality like Sullivan's, but the players weren't pulling it off the old way. Sometimes it really is the coach who needs to make the change.
• Giving credit where due, Part 87: Be thankful for every game, every shift and every backhand.
• A linesman, Derek Amell, stood right by Juuso Riikola when he was crushed -- and injured -- on a flagrant, half-the-rink charge by the Stars' Brett Ritchie in the second period:
Amell was looking right at it. Did nothing. Froze right up. And in this case, because it was a clear case for a major penalty, he was the one who blew it, not either referee, since linesmen are empowered to call majors.
That's troubling. Because it's yet another sign that the NHL doesn't condition its linesmen in this regard. Amell and his fellow linesman on this night, Scott Driscoll, have been around forever. They should be instructed, even urged to be more proactive in calling penalties, rather than allowing that to be the rarest of occurrences. The league does nothing of the kind, from what I've been told, which is why these guys go through entire games focused on little more than offsides and icing.
These guys know the game. Put them to better use.
• This is where I'm supposed to pound my figurative fist on a table, I suppose, and demand that the NHL's Department of Player Safety lay down the law on Ritchie, given that his hit was every bit as predatory as anything Tom Wilson's pulled in the past few months.
But nah ...
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CHRIS BENSON / DKPS[/caption]
• Hate to see Riikola go down like that, though it was encouraging that he came back and, in fact, I was told later that he only had the wind knocked out of him and might not even have left the ice had it not been for NHL concussion protocol.
It's worth appreciating that, before the hit, he was in peak form. That included this terrific little trifecta that caught my eye in the first period:
That's a confident young man right there. Finishes the check on Roope Hintz at the far boards, resets himself instantly to maintain position, retrieves the puck, then breaks out seamlessly to Crosby right through his own slot.
He never should have been watching from the press box. That's not hindsight on my part, either. I've been writing that since the first morning of the first day of training camp.
• If anyone hasn't already come around on Johnson -- and come on, that train's well down the tracks by now -- maybe this will do it:
That's Johnson whaling away at Ritchie in the third period. And deserving of a penalty to the point of basically pleading for it. Again and again and again. But there'd be no call. And to boot, no retaliation from Ritchie, who apparently isn't anywhere near as tough when he isn't trying to blindside someone.
Trust me when I tell you Johnson enjoyed this. That is all.
• The NHL's overall season officially reached its quarter-point earlier in the day, and the highlight to date undoubtedly is that scoring is up to 6.1 goals per game, the highest average since 2005-06 and second-highest since 1996-97.
That's wonderful, but I'll stubbornly insist hockey isn't all the way back to being hockey until we hail the return of wingers ripping slap shots on the fly, with Guy Lafleur flair:
That was Tanner Pearson, of course. Came in the second period, made the score 5-0 and chased Anton Khudobin. So it wasn't remarkable in that regard.
But a slapper while streaking down the wing?
I mean, has anybody done that regularly in Pittsburgh since ... Randy Cunneyworth way back in the 1980s?
"Yeah, kind of old-school, right?" Pearson was telling me afterward. "Funny thing is, I don't have much of a slap shot at all. I mean, I never take it. My dad was here tonight, and I guarantee you I'm going to get all kinds of grief for even trying it."
Trying it?
He bludgeoned that back bar.
"Crazy. It's been a couple years since I've even tried that, but I scored that time, too. And it was against Dallas, if you can believe that."
• Thanksgiving Eve and hockey have long been linked in these parts, and I've loved that connection just as long. It's an especially engaged crowd that packs the place, with family and college students back in town seizing a rare chance to cheer on their team, and it always feels like it makes a difference.
Enjoy the holiday, my friends. At this little business, we're first and foremost grateful to have you with us.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
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Penguins vs. Stars, PPG Paints Arena, Nov. 21, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS[/caption]
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