Midway through the first period of the Penguins’ 5-3 triumph over the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena last night, Sidney Crosby made a play deep in our zone to thwart a CBJ cycle and start us on the transition. As I watched him diligently perform his defensive chores, it occurred to me just how much we as Pens fans (or at least I personally) take him for granted.
Season after season, through all our ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, he’s remained marvelously and unerringly consistent. The on-ice equivalent of the Rock of Gibraltar.
Canucks coach and former black-and-gold assistant Rick Tocchet once likened a young Olli Määttä to a “video-game defenseman,” always making the correct play. Well, the same goes for our captain. He always seems to make the right read and the right play. No detail seems to escape his attention. No matter how unglamorous the task, he’s always willing to roll up his sleeves and do the dirty work.
Suffice to say, the game belonged to Sid last night. With three goals and a helper, he dominated the action, not to mention the scoresheet, virtually from start to finish.
Just past the four-minute mark of the first period he snapped a short pass from Marcus Pettersson past Elvis Merzlikins from a sharp angle along the goal line. The tally typified what separates Sid from so many other superstars…his willingness to muck down low and in the dirty areas.
The most skilled grinder in the league, as former linemate and TV color man Colby Armstrong once described him.
Following Sid’s tally, our guys seemed to take their collective foot off the gas pedal. Perhaps they anticipated an easy night against a CBJ squad that had gone 1-5-4 in their previous 10 games. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
Gathering momentum, the Blue Jackets swarmed like Mike Lange’s bees around a hive before knotting the score on a brilliant individual effort by Kirill Marchenko, who sliced through our butter-soft defense before beating Tristan Jarry with a backhander.
Yegor Chinakhov made it 2-1 with 32 seconds to play in the period on a bullet from the right circle, courtesy of a nice set up from old friend Erik Gudbranson and a big boy screen by Boone Jenner (love the player and the name).
At this stage I feared it was destined to be one of those nights when we take a foe too lightly and get burned. Fortunately, my fears proved unfounded as we battled back to tie the score at 7:04 of the second frame. Sid alertly spotted Vinnie Hinostroza hopping over the boards and speeding toward the slot and fed him the puck. Hino couldn’t control the pass, but Jake Guentzel pounced on the loose rubber and swept it past Merzlikins.
Evgeni Malkin’s line got into the act, staking us to a 3-2 lead at 8:40 of the final period…with a little help from Erik Karlsson. Rickard Rakell made a nice play to bump the puck off the boards to Malkin. Using Pettersson as a decoy at center point, Geno slipped a cross-ice feed into Karlsson’s wheelhouse. EK65 did the rest, blasting the biscuit past Merzlikins stick side.
The Jackets countered again on a marker by Alexandre Texier three minutes later. However, the Pens…or more to the point…Sid, would not be denied. After threading a pass through an onrushing Bryan Rust to Karlsson, No. 87 circled behind the net and presented himself as a target along the goal line. EK65 fed him a perfect shot-pass and our captain did the rest, somehow chop-deflecting the puck past Merzlikins from a sharp angle.
My word, what an incredible display of hand-eye coordination. Breathtaking.
Sid capped the win…and his hatty…with an empty-netter. All in a night’s work for Super Sid.
Enjoy him while you can, folks. No. Make that treasure him while you can. He’s something special.
Puckpourri
The Pens held sway in shot attempts (71-62), shots on goal (41-30) and high-danger chances (13-10) according to Natural Stat Trick. The Blue Jackets had a 31-25 edge in scoring chances, which reinforced the eye test.
I thought this was our sloppiest game defensively in quite some time, forcing Jarry to make a number of big saves. Fortunately, he was up to the task.
The CBJ blocked 21 shots and packed the house defensively, which usually gives us fits. But we found a way.
All of our forward lines registered a plus-60 Corsi. Absolutely dominant at times, our third line had an expected goals for percentage of 76.98!
Sid extended his points streak to nine games. He leads the team with 10 goals and 19 points in 14 games, a striking 59-goal, 112-point pace over a full 82-game season.
Amazing!
Speaking of amazing, how about the chemistry he and Karlsson are beginning to display. You can tell they think the game the same way. I’m tellin’ ya, the sky’s virtually the limit for those two.
True confessions…I had some reservations about acquiring Karlsson. They’ve pretty much been blown away by his electric start (five goals, 15 points in 14 games). Goodness, what a weapon he is, able to take over games single-handed.
Kyle Dubas sure knew what he was doing. Ditto his acquisition of Reilly Smith. Actually, a number of his additions, including Lars Eller, Radim Zohorna and Ryan Shea, have neatly fallen into place. Although they aren’t scoring, Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto are doing the job defensively and on the pk.
Nice to see Rakell get a helper on EK65’s goal. His scoring woes aren’t for a lack of effort. Wish we’d put RikRak out there in empty-net situations to get him one.
I like Hinostroza’s zip. I think he could evolve into an Evan Rodrigues-type player if so utilized.
On Deck
The Pens (8-6) return home to face the Devils (7-6-1) on Thursday night. Then things get considerably tougher with back-to-backs against Carolina and Vegas this weekend.
Thanks to out five-game winning streak, we’re currently lodged in fourth place in the Metro and tied for the second Eastern Conference wild card slot.
Perhaps even Other Rick is smiling (poke).
Hey Rick,
I am neither smiling nor frowning, our Penguins are simply winning games that had they lost, they needed to be ashamed of themselves.
I won’t go on a normal tirade about Jarry. As you know I can’t stay up to watch any late hockey as early as I get up and these last couple of days have been 14 hr days, so I still haven’t watched the replay of the game, so I can’t comment on what happened late in the game, but aside from the first GA, the blame for Gs 2 and 3 against were completely on our defensemen with GA number 2 squarely on our Defensive system and the number of Ruth Buzzi’s incapable of anything but purse swinging.
Speaking of Defense, in the 2 – year span that the Penguins won Cups, they were 10th in the league in terms of blocking shots, mainly on the strength of grit guys like Bonino, Kuhnhackl , and Cole. Have you looked at where the team is in terms of blocked shots this season?
28th
The Penguins rank 10th in the league in terms of Shots Against but only 28th in the league in blocked shots
That is a concern of mine. It goes back to the age old complaint of a lack of toughness to this team. They seem very reluctant to do the hard work that goes into winning. Over these last 5 games, 2 games against teams on the end of back-to-back series, 1 game against the worst team in hockey, a game against a team that was poised to start losing, and now a team foundering just as bad if not worse than us.
I’ll take the wins, but unless Dubas gets a big (Zadorov) real defensive Defensemen, willing to move people out of the crease and block shots and the Coach starts having his D-men actual protect the crease instead of roaming all over the ice, I won’t smile. Yes, I will gladly take the Ws, but I won’t buy playoff tickets.
Hey Other Rick,
I, too, feel we could benefit from a physical presence on the blue line and would love to get Zadorov. But trading Pettersson isn’t the way to do it.
According to an article by Gretz on Pensburgh titled, “The Erik Karlsson-Marcus Pettersson pairing has been one of the NHL’s best,” the duo has been on the ice for 16 5v5 goals for and only 4 against while grading out very high in other metrics.
You simply don’t mess with that.
I’d love to get Zadorov, too, but we’ll need to figure out another way to do it.
Rick
Ok Rick,
So, I looked at some deeper stats to try and understand Pettersson’s 5on5 Goal Diff of which you are so enamored,
The 5 opponent skaters that MP has spent the most time playing against, all played for Anaheim, LaCombe, Fowler, Zegras, Terry, Carlsson. The 5on5 Goal Diff for those players are,
LaCombe – 18.75%, Fowler – 35%, Zegras – 25%, Terry – 37.50%, Carlsson – 33.33%
Against CBJ at least 1 of MP’s top 5 Opponents broke the 50% barrier, Severson (48.7%), Provorov (50.00%), Gudranson (45.45%), Werenski (43.75%), Texier (38.10%)
Against Calgary MP’s top 5 Opponents, Weegar (48.00%), Zadorov (41.67%), Dude (33.33%), Kadri (39.13%), Ruzicka (41.67%)
Chicago, Bedard (45.83%), Korchinski (31.03%), Hall (50%), Donato (53.33%), Murphy (33.33%)
Cutting it short, MP hasn’t really been playing against a whole lot of players on the positive side of the 5on5 Goal Differential. It is not an exhaustive list, I neither had the time nor the space to list every game/Opponent, but the only team/Game that I reviewed in which the top five opposing skaters in terms of ice time skating against MP all were on the positive side of the Goal Diff (50% or above) was Buffalo.
So, Rick, I put it to you that MP may not be the worst Defenseman on the team, but he is certainly not indispensable. MP’s stats are quite easily explained by the lack of quality in the opposing skaters that he has faced. This will not always be the case, particularly at crunch time and in the playoffs, when MP’s predilection to panicking when opposing forecheckers attack him and throwing the puck away will become seriously problematic. Right now, EK, against weak opponents, has been able to handle MP’s near perfect deference to EK in terms of puck handling, much the way Scuderi kept passing immediately to Despres. However, the good teams will eventually see this, if they haven’t already, and they will sit back waiting for Pettersson’s panic and bait Pettersson into critical Gv at critical times.
MP is average at best, looking good right now riding the coattails of EK, benefiting from weak competition, and compared to the pathetic corps behind him.
Even though NZ’s Goal Diff is not as high as MP’s, I would gladly swap those 2-Defensemen and retain a portion of MP’s salary and give up OP to get NZ’s size and grit.