Column: Dupuis felled, and Penguins follow

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Pascal Dupuis is struck in the upper back by a shot near the Dallas crease Thursday night. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Sometimes it really isn’t about strategy or sweat or even an egregious Evgeni Malkin giveaway.

Sure, the Penguins turned what felt like the safest possible one-goal lead against a sleepy Dallas squad into a stunning 3-2 loss Thursday night at Consol Energy Center — Jamie Benn scored with 2:57 left, Tyler Seguin with just 2.9 seconds left — and it left all concerned pretty sour.

“In the third, they were down one and started coming a little harder and … we probably made it a little too easy on them,” Sidney Crosby said. He was one of four players to show for the media availability, which only continued the silence that essentially defined the evening. “But still, to not even get a point out of that, it’s a little frustrating.”

No doubt. And all I’ll add to actual hockey analysis is this: Malkin’s turnover at the attacking blue line led to a Seguin breakaway that led to a waved-off goal that led to Lindy Ruff and the Stars fuming that led to their guys finally emerging from a fog that led to Benn’s goal that led to Crosby needlessly yanking down Benn with 10 seconds left that led to Seguin’s power-play goal on a one-timer that looked eminently stoppable on Marc-Andre Fleury’s part that led to more questions about a penalty-killing unit that’s been the lowlight of the Penguins’ early going.

And that’s it.

Because, if you ask me, all of this was really about Pascal Dupuis.

Everyone’s seen it by now, that terrifying sequence in the second period: Alex Goligoski, late of the Penguins, crosschecked Dupuis in the back behind near the Dallas goal and felled him. With Dupuis’ head making contact with the ice, no less. And from there, as if two upper-body blows weren’t enough, in the cruelest and maybe most severe blow, Kris Letang’s slap shot struck the crumpled Dupuis in the upper back, just below the neck and dead center.

Play actually continued for a moment, until referee Greg Kimmerly detected the severity and blew his whistle. Which is when everyone, including the 18,615 on hand, saw it, too.

Dupuis predictably tried to rise up, but instead was reduced to flailing off his gloves. Doctors were summoned to the ice, as was a stretcher, and an already quiet crowd could now hear the crickets out on Centre Avenue.

Same at ice level.

“It’s above and beyond the sport,” Brandon Sutter said. “I don’t think anyone was too worried about the game when he went down.”

“Injuries are part of the game,” Rob Scuderi said, “but some are scarier than others.”

“You see a guy taken off on a stretcher … it’s not good,” Crosby said. “And after everything Duper’s been through …”

I wasn’t wild about Goligoski’s role in this and asked him, apparently either to his confusion or his chagrin, if he felt responsible for the Dupuis injury:

I’ll let his answer stand mostly without comment, though his depiction of “a little shot” doesn’t match the video. There’s nothing noble about stickwork in the NHL, but it’s worth waiting to see the medical diagnoses before casting him as villain.

And to that end, there was no immediate word on Dupuis’ injury or its severity. Mike Johnston offered little more than that Dupuis was experiencing feeling and showed other “good signs.” Sutter described Dupuis as “moving around and talking, so that was good.”

But right now, we have no idea.

And at that point and all through the moribund third period, neither did the Penguins.

All four of those players who spoke afterward, and Johnston, too, rejected the notion that Dupuis’ injury would have rattled them to defeat, and I respect that.

I respect equally that Lindy Ruff observed afterward that his Stars’ horrifying experience last season with Rich Peverley’s in-game cardiac arrest no doubt weighed heavily on them, too.

“We’ve been around some tough situations,” Ruff said, “and that one scared us as much as it scared the Penguins.”

But I also find it unfathomable that it wasn’t a bigger factor for the home side. Not with all that Dupuis represents, on and off the ice. Not with his being freshly back from 10 months of rehab to major knee surgery. Not with the ugliness of the scene itself.

So hey, feel free to bury the Penguins for the result, individually and collectively. Not me. I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. They stormed to a 2-0 lead in the opening eight minutes by continuing to storm the net. The power play put up two more goals and, even when not scoring, dissected Dallas’ fragile box all night long. The defense, notably Simon Despres, stood tall. The Xs and Os were in place, too, with all the tight breakouts and all else.

As Sutter smartly diagnosed, “We played the way we wanted for 40 minutes, and we have some things to learn from the final 20.”

Sure, like don’t hand the puck away or take hollow penalties. Or don’t get distraught when a beloved teammate looks seriously injured.

The Islanders will be in town Saturday, but all eyes will be open for Engine No. 9 in the interim.

Ears, too.

“A guy like that, he means so much,” Johnston said. “He gives us a lift,  you know?”