Pittsburgh Penguins Need Dedication to Detail to Move Forward
If they’re going to play more consistently in the season’s unofficial second half, the Pens will have to play with more determination than dazzle.
The headline-worthy developments from the Penguins’ much-anticipated return to play following the NHL’s All-Star break included goaltender Tristan Jarry’s league-leading sixth shutout and not one but two power-play goals produced by the NHL’s second-worst power play.
Stop the presses.
Yet what really has a chance to resonate for the Pens, and what must if the unofficial second half of the season is to be significantly better than the first, was the dedication to detail throughout what became a 3-0 victory over Winnipeg on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena.
Head coach Mike Sullivan was asked afterward about Jarry, who had been more periodically solid than spectacular, and about a power play that had been more opportunistic than locked in.
But what really appeared to excite Sullivan was the opportunity to discuss seemingly mundane details that had been apparent in his team’s game in abundance.
Having sticks on the ice in passing lanes, or in anticipation of getting a stick on the puck, having a sufficient number of players back in the defensive end to defend, and being positionally sound without the puck are all characteristics of individual and team play the Pens have displayed at times this season.
But they haven’t consistently put that type of game on display, in part because they haven’t seemed all that interested in doing so.
Too often they haven’t been what Sullivan would characterize as “hard to play against.
“A lot of it is just a mindset and a certain discipline to play the game the right way,” he emphasized.
The first goal against Winnipeg was a result of both, and the type that can take the Pens a long way the rest of the way.
Center Lars Eller coming hard on the forecheck and hunting the puck behind the Jets’ net with wingers Rickard Rakell and Jesse Puljujarvi crashing from either side. Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey being pressured into a poor breakout pass up the middle and Jets center Adam Lowry being unable to handle it. Defenseman Kris Letang jumping on the loose puck the Pens’ forechecking pressure had helped to dislodge and burying a backhand from the slot.
More will than skill.
More determination than dazzle.
But effective in playing the type of low-risk, low-event game the Pens can excel at consistently if they become so inclined.
It’s a significant component of the playoff hockey the Pens are going to have to play if they intend to make the playoffs.
“That’s gotta be the foundation of our play, good plays without the puck leads to offense,” Eller maintained. “A good forecheck, forcing turnovers, very sustainable. It’s just about commitment and having guys in the right spots and moving your feet.
“I think everybody can do it, it’s just about being committed.”
Sullivan has talked often over the years about the Pens’ offensive “DNA.”
But that ain’t what it used to be.
Sullivan knows it.
The trick the rest of the way will be to get the players to buy into what the DNA needs to be to change the narrative of their season.
Sullivan knows that, too.
“That has to be an important aspect of our team identity, our ability and our willingness to play a team game,” Sullivan insisted. “An important aspect of winning in this league is No. 1, you can’t beat yourself. And No. 2, you gotta be hard to play against.
“You can define it different ways, but for me when I think about this group that we have, being hard to play against is just being stingy and having numbers back, and positionally sound, and having good sticks, closing on people and taking time and space away, using our quickness and our skill sets to win pucks. This group is very capable of that. When we are the results speak for themselves.
“At the end of the day if we’re going to get where we want to go, we have to keep the puck out of our net, we have to be hard to play against, we can’t beat ourselves. I know this group is capable of that. That has to be part of the DNA moving forward.”
That, too, would be worth a headline.
Maybe even a big one.
