Penguins Grades: ‘Scarred’ Pens Get Stronger; Sullivan Makes ‘Tweaks’

The Pittsburgh Penguins don’t like comfortable, and they surely don’t make anything easy. After converting nearly every chance and racing to a 5-1 lead over the Vancouver Canucks, the Penguins watched their four-goal lead slowly evaporate over the final 35 minutes. But captain Sidney Crosby dragged the team back from the brink after each goal.

With the extra attacker, Elias Pettersson scored to slash the Penguins lead to 5-4. And who didn’t think the Penguins were about to lose?

Probably the only people in the building who expected the Penguins to win were, indeed, the Penguins. Despite the near equalization on the scoreboard, the Penguins neither panicked nor went into a defensive shell and were able to contain Vancouver in the final two minutes for a vital victory.

“We were on our toes. I think we were in their face,” said Bryan Rust, who scored a pair of goals and had three points. “And when we made mistakes, or they got it by us, I think we had guys working hard to get back and trying to cover it.”

The Penguins’ two days of practice before the game were apparent, as their breakouts were crisp, especially in the first period. The practice led to speed through the neutral zone and high-quality offensive chances. Even the power play converted with a setup that more closely resembled their early-season success.

It’s funny how much better a team can look without self-inflicted wounds and a shell-shocked look in their eyes.

“We should feel good about (the win) because I thought we really worked hard. I thought we played on our toes. And when you’re going through a skid like we’ve gone through–as you can imagine, it’s human nature–we’re scarred because they care,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “When you’ve got to fight through that element of human nature, you’ve got to manufacture confidence, you’ve got to play on your toes. One of the things that we’ve talked about the last few days was just anticipation and being more proactive as opposed to reactive on both sides of the puck.”

For one night, mission accomplished.

Penguins Xs and Os

The team played significantly better than it had in weeks. The dispirited team that was little more than cannon fodder for both Winnipeg and Utah last weekend suddenly played with enthusiasm and conviction.

The breakouts were textbook. Of course, it helped greatly that the Penguins defensemen were passing the puck to the proper team. The Penguins exploited Vancouver’s forecheck for long stretch passes, often with a weak-side trailer for zone entry speed.

Sullivan made a few tweaks to the Penguins system at practice. They were not large undertakings but enough to simplify the game for the swath of new players in the lineup.

“I’d like to believe (the practices) were helpful just with respect to some of the things that we went through both in the film sessions and then trying to go out and get repetitions in practice,” Sullivan said. “We felt like we had two productive days. It’s not that we changed a whole lot, but we made some tweaks to our respective game in different zones. We tried to simplify it a little bit, so we could take some of the thinking out of it and hopefully get our guys playing on their toes a little bit more and a little bit more of an instinctive mode.”

Erik Karlsson may have played his most complete game this season. He skated with the puck, pushing forward and forcing Vancouver to react when they took away the breakout passes. It was the reason the Penguins acquired Karlsson, and he was engaged in the defensive zone, too.

All around, the defense was significantly better. From defending low to limiting turnovers, the Penguins’ sort-out coming back into the defensive zone was so much better that they barely resembled the haphazard, confused team of the last few weeks. When mistakes or bad bounces happened, the Penguins were able to mitigate the damage.

Penguins Report Card

Team: B

Despite nearly blowing a 5-1 lead, the Penguins didn’t play poorly. Vancouver got a couple of good goals, and a couple of bounces. There was only one goal that looked like the Penguins were asleep (Suter’s goal late in the second period, in which multiple players were loose on their assignment).

In fact, Sidney Crosby’s line kept the team from losing their cool as they got the puck deep in the offensive zone and took away Vanouver’s momentum after each goal. At no point in the game did Vancouver smother the Penguins or overwhelm them. The last time the Penguins faced Vancouver, the Penguins gave up three goals in 65 seconds. There was no rapid-fire scoring on Wednesday.

In the end, it looked more like a reasonably well-played 5-4 win in which the goals were scored out of order rather than big swings of momentum.

Penguins Defense: B+

Grading on the curve, the Penguins defense was spectacular. Ryan Shea and Jack St. Ivany kept their game simple–St. Ivany was frequently seen pushing players away from the net, while Shea’s three turnovers were not costly (St. Ivany was scored with five turnovers, but it surely didn’t seem like it).

Karlsson’s shining game made a huge difference.

Rakell-Crosby-Rust: A+

Three goals. Extended zone time with genuine pressure at the net. The line could have scored five. They came through when the team needed it. Bryan Rust had two goals and an assist. Crosby had two assists and a plus-3 rating.

Philip Tomasino: Too soon

The new guy looked increasingly comfortable, but understandably, he looked like he was thinking more than playing in his first game. There’s no shame in that.

Tristan Jarry: B-

He was good enough—not bad. The Suter goal was stoppable, as was the Hughes goal, which made it 5-3 in the first minute of the third period.

Mike Sullivan: 

From system tweaks to simplify, which seemed to work, to having the courage to make a few veterans healthy scratches, Sullivan has been more active than he’s been in a few years. The Shea-St. Ivany pair was an overdue move, and putting Blake Lizotte between Anthony Beauvillier and Drew O’Connor seemed to work, too.