Sidney Crosby celebrates his shootout goal with teammates on the bench Sunday at Consol. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
For four excruciating minutes of overtime Sunday night, the Penguins’ most skilled forwards were relegated to the same status as the standing, roaring 18,620 citizens surrounding them at Consol Energy Center.
“We were fans,” Sidney Crosby was telling me a lot later. “Oh, man, we were fired up.”
“Same here,” David Perron chimed in from the next stall. “We couldn’t wait to get out there.”
It sure didn’t look like they would, did it?
It was early in overtime, and Patric Hornqvist drew blood on a high-sticking double-minor against the Sharks’ Brent Burns. The two had been battling along the boards, the blade came up, and enough blood emerged to draw the call. Hornqvist blew it and knew it: “I went right to the box.”
And out onto the ice came San Jose’s sixth-ranked power play, headlined by Joe Pavelski, whose 19 power-play goals are second in the NHL only to Alexander Ovechkin’s 22. Neither the Sharks nor Pavelski get the pub in this part of the world, but people inside the game speak in the most glowing tones about their excellence with the extra man.
To boot, they were about to go four-on-three, with all that extra ice and 3:49 on the clock.
You saw what came next. Or, if you were in there, you felt it.
Maybe for the first time all winter.
____________________
Rewind to 3 a.m. the previous day, and Perron’s bed.
“Honestly, I was fine on Friday. You saw me,” he was saying. I concurred. “But I woke up in the middle of the night with all these sweats and shivers, and I’m, like, ‘What’s going on?’ “
He never found out. But he did know he couldn’t play Saturday against the Coyotes, and he couldn’t even escape the sheets yesterday. He skipped the morning skate, and Mike Johnston told reporters he was ‘doubtful’ to face the Sharks, even as the coach acknowledged that — because of injury, salary-cap and waiver issues — his bench likely would go one forward and one defenseman short.
Perron heard that, too. He crowbarred himself upright, then into the car, then Downtown.
“No way I could let the guys play like that,” he recalled.
Seems that was anticipated. Upon arriving at Consol, Perron found a post-it note at his stall from Johnston, asking him to stop by the coach’s office.
“We talked,” Johnston said, “and he told me he’d at least like to give us three or five minutes or whatever he could. So we agreed he’d play on the fourth line to kind of keep his minutes down. He told me he’d be able to handle that.”
Yeah, he lied. After dragging through warmups and about 20 minutes before the opening draw, Perron had to run out of the home locker room for the nearest bathroom and … oh, use your imagination.
“Hey, goalies throw up all the time, right?” he reasoned. “I can do it, too.”
If possible, Perron would feel that much sicker in the final second of regulation, when a Crosby pass hopped across the San Jose slot and right onto his blade. But he shot wide.
“Ugh. Those keep you up at night.”
Not necessarily in a better way than the one he’d just experienced.
____________________
Let’s cut right through it: Consol has been a lousy place to take in hockey this season. To call the atmosphere dead is an insult to how the place might behave if filled with 18,000-plus cadavers. The chants are sparse and forced. The mood tightens like a noose at the first trace of trouble. I’ve heard it’s gotten so bad that fans who want to stand and cheer are being shouted down, told to shut up and take their seats.
Not on this night.
I’ve got no idea why, but not on this night.
Because from the moment Maxim Lapierre, Daniel Winnik, Brandon Sutter, Nick Spaling, Craig Adams, Rob Scuderi and Paul Martin were tasked with toughing this out, the crowd was strikingly supportive. And loud. Really loud.
“You feel that when you’re out there,” Crosby said. “Heck, we felt it on the bench. It makes a difference.”
Not as much as Lapierre winning all three defensive-zone draws. Or Winnik and Adams diving and sliding to block shots and passes. Or Scuderi, in perhaps his performance of the year, brilliantly holding up the hardest end of the inverted-triangle penalty-kill by boxing out cross-crease passes. The latter, above all, nullified Pavelski, who parked and waited and waited for pucks that never arrived. The four measly shots that made it were stuffed by Marc-Andre Fleury.
Johnston cited assistant coach Gary Agnew’s extra preparation, too: “We were fortunate to have prepared not only for their five-on-four but also their four-on-three. That helped.”
When the OT clock hit all zeroes, same as the Sharks’ goal total, the crowd erupted.
Maybe they were congratulating themselves a bit, too.
___________________
The mood on the bench was a match.
“When you see something like that, you’re just so pumped up,” Crosby said. “You see everything those guys were doing for us just to have that chance at the shootout …”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. Only the objective.
That, for anyone who has played or merely appreciated the world’s fastest sport, is disgusting.
Because no one should be able to hold a signature backhand move, one that everyone in the building — not least of whom is Alex Stalock in the San Jose net — knows is coming, and then still roof it authoritatively with barely a backhand flick of the wrist.
I shared my disgust with Perron afterward …
Crosby shared his disgust, as well. With just the three of us left in the room, Crosby snapped across to Perron, “You know, if I was right-handed, that’s the only move I’d ever use, too. Seriously, all you have to think about is getting it over the pad. You don’t even worry about the blocker.”
That’s because every goaltender’s glove hand is sharper than his blocker. And most blockers are on the right hand, right where Perron tormented Stalock.
Perron took it in stride: “Oh, I know. It’s a real advantage.”
Not so much disgusting as … intellectually efficient?
See, Crosby’s gotten markedly better on shootouts over the years, and he’s 5 for 9 this season.
Both these guys are quite good, actually …
But Crosby still doesn’t have that one move you’d submit to the trademark office. He prefers to get in tight, survey the scene and react accordingly. Or he’ll watch what the previous shooter, someone like Perron, might expose.
Or, as on this night, he’ll put 2 and 2 together.
“Did you see all the snow down there?” Crosby asked, regarding the end at which San Jose was shooting in overtime. “They had the power play and were down there the whole time.”
Right. And the ice, as a result, was more like ‘snow.’
“No way I was going to try a move down there.”
So, he coupled that knowledge with what Perron had just shown of Stalock’s blocker and simply blistered away.
There’s nothing intrinsically special about this result, the stories aside. The home team took both games on a weekend that followed yet another trail of skepticism, maybe the ugliest of the season. Second place in the Metro was regained by matching the Islanders at 93 points. Generally speaking, the input and outcome were terrific but hardly transformational.
If anything stood out, actually, it was the crowd. Or whoever those people were.
In all candor, the first thought that crossed my mind when someone mentioned that the Penguins currently hold home-ice advantage for the first round of playoffs — the Islanders would have to come here — was that they’d be better off starting out at the Coliseum. Away from the skepticism and cynicism and the spewing of the same-old-Fleury garbage that surely will accompany the first puck that gets by.
Imagine the difference an engaged crowd, or an engaged broader public, could make. When the Steelers made the late push for a division title in December, the city passionately drove them. When the Pirates make so much as a cameo in the playoffs, it’s the stuff of piano music and parades.
The Penguins have 42 wins, two healthy superstars, one in line for another scoring title, a Vezina-level goaltender and, if he gets healthy, a Norris-level defenseman in Kris Letang. They’ve got a Hornqvist, too, for crying out loud, whose relentless drive and will to win should supersede any doubts anywhere. And they’ve achieved all this despite losing two critical players lost for the season and a million other man-games on the ledger.
But they’re dead and buried to so many. At least on the outside.
Johnston doesn’t get sappy much, to put it mildly. This one visibly moved him.
“We’ve got a lot going on right now, a lot of adversity, playing a man or two short,” the coach said. “I just told those guys in there that I’m proud of how we’ve responded. I like what I’m seeing.”
____________________
Perron unlaced his skates, stripped off the long socks.
“This team’s worth it, you know?”
He was describing his motivation for showing up in such a big way on this night. He could have been describing so much more.
Half the time it's only 70% full thru the whole game. So many corporations have season tickets now and 90%of the time don't even use them.. And when they do theyre the stuffy ones, the ones leaving early. I see it at every game I go to. It's so frustrating I know so many passionate pens fans that would love to own season tickets but can even make it to a game.
oconnell.m
3-30-2015, 3:56 am
Ticket prices are expensive. The people we sit with are all well over 50, with a 30 minute ride home ahead of them. And they come to every single home game. I'd be with you if I didn't sit with these people. They are die hards who have watched hundreds of hockey games. If they want to watch the last three minutes from the concourse so they can get a jump on traffic? Let them. That's not to mention how much they pay at concessions, which is generally equivalent to their ticket. And I sit in the upper deck.
Raymond Robear
3-30-2015, 4:03 am
Honestly the traffic situation is heinous. I was talking with a friend that lives in Detroit about it and they were so confused "wait you.. Mean.. Your arena.. Is in the middle of downtown!?"
Vincenze G.
3-30-2015, 7:37 am
Please....must we complain about everything? One of the charms of Pittsburgh & our sports teams is that the stadiums, parks & arenas is that they are downtown or within walking distance. I've been to hockey games in Chicago, Detroit & many other cities & I'll take Consol's location over the wasteland of asphalt (& the accompanying parking) of many of these. Once there is development at the Civic/Mellon Arena site the area should be vibrant. Perhaps the real complaint should be around public transportation options.
GEARHEAD
3-30-2015, 7:58 am
I blame the city and the organization for building the arena in the worst location possible. With all of the open land out by the old airport and other surrounding locations there's no reason why all 3 major sports venues should have been built downtown. Stupid, stupid, stupid. These venues should have been built outside of the most congested city in the country and in open spaces surrounded by parking lots. Nobody wants to sit in a parking garage for an hour after the game, that's why they leave early.
CoachD
3-30-2015, 11:08 am
I don't really concern myself with whether others stay or not because the way I see it they paid they can do what they want. The part I don't understand is the complaining about traffic and the stories about sitting in the traffic for hours. I've been a season ticket holder for 10 years, I not only stay for the entire game but also the announcement of the 3 stars and usually the interview as well and yet every game I'm through the squirrel hill tunnels within 20 minutes and the drive that normally takes about 45 minutes take an hour. If you're sitting in traffic for an hour you have no one to blame but yourself because there are more than enough easy ways to leave the arena.
Michelle
3-30-2015, 12:33 pm
Yea squirell hill tunnels.. Ever try going into the fort PITT tunnel after a game? I'm there for an hour minimum trying to get thru.
nightsky73144
3-30-2015, 2:09 pm
Some of the comments here are interesting. I guess it depends on where one parks, and where one lives; but I seldom have much trouble leaving after a game. I like the arena being downtown. I've been to games in other cities, and it's a lot easier and faster (for me) than many other places. Spend forever either taking the Long Island railroad (and a cab), or getting out of the parking lots at the Coliseum...I'll take where CEC is any day of the week.
That said, I think CEC is a sterile building. For whatever reason, it certainly doesn't have the atmosphere of the Civic Arena, which was a wonderful place to see a hockey game. And, the crowd is regularly terrible. Either there's no emotion, or, if the Pens are up, you have the morons with their high-pitched 'woo'ing.
I don't know what the answer is.
emdeardo
3-30-2015, 6:34 pm
I hate seeing people leave early. And I don't buy the whole traffic is awful. Nationwide Arena is in downtown Columbus. Come on, guys. Stay the whole game.
Just a great team win last night. This win may just pull this team together in a way that is sorely needed with the playoffs coming up. Great effort by everyone that was dressed.
Dejan, you are simply Pittsburghs finest. we love you man! The way the crowd was on the overtime penalty kill, is there a way to publicly implore the season ticket holders to be that way at all times. like it should be
Sometimes the crowd has embarrassed me. I can't make it to a game, and would give a lot to be able to be there. Sometimes it does sound like a funeral, not on this night.
One of your best on the Pens! I am already emotionally invested and really hope this level of investment and excitement from within the team carries through the playoffs!
This type of passion & drive is there to be sure. It's those nights when it seems the team "mails" it in which becomes so frustrating (injuries dually noted). An engaged Penguins team is a dangerous one. Love the banter with 39 & 87. Talk about passion.
Exactly - when they put forth a full effort, the team can be excellent.
As you point out though, they seem to not always do it.
Ron
3-30-2015, 11:05 am
Pens crowds have been lame for years. What they need to do is let the people who watch the big screen outside during the playoffs come inside. Then put the yuppies who come to the game just to socialize outside. I think we would be amazed by the difference in the noise level.
Great column DK. The difference last night was this team seemed engaged for the first time since playing Anaheim. We played with the desperation that Crosby admonished the team for lacking earlier this week. The key for this group is now to find a way to maintain that desperation in their game. If they can manage that, perhaps we'll all be wearing shorts to the rink this year.
Nice job mentioning the crowd. That corporate feel has to go. Glad the crowd their last night was different. Hell of a win, they need to ride the momentum from it.
My son (his first game) and I drove in from VA for this game. You bet we were going to cheer. That OT was incredible. What fortitude shown by the PK. 4 points this weekend were welcome! 6 games until the show. Hopefully, the crowd will 'show up' then, too.
I felt the energy from my couch! That was awesome to witness. The details within the win--the PK team in OT; standing up for each other (and I thought it was classy of Hornqvist to check on Burns) knowing their teammate made an honest mistake, Perron losing his watch then taking his place on the bench, Kunitz scoring for the first time since the Reagan administration--are just as special
March 30, 2015
Column: These Penguins are worth it, no?
by Dejan Kovacevic • Columns • Penguins
Sidney Crosby celebrates his shootout goal with teammates on the bench Sunday at Consol. — GETTY
BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC
For four excruciating minutes of overtime Sunday night, the Penguins’ most skilled forwards were relegated to the same status as the standing, roaring 18,620 citizens surrounding them at Consol Energy Center.
“We were fans,” Sidney Crosby was telling me a lot later. “Oh, man, we were fired up.”
“Same here,” David Perron chimed in from the next stall. “We couldn’t wait to get out there.”
It sure didn’t look like they would, did it?
It was early in overtime, and Patric Hornqvist drew blood on a high-sticking double-minor against the Sharks’ Brent Burns. The two had been battling along the boards, the blade came up, and enough blood emerged to draw the call. Hornqvist blew it and knew it: “I went right to the box.”
And out onto the ice came San Jose’s sixth-ranked power play, headlined by Joe Pavelski, whose 19 power-play goals are second in the NHL only to Alexander Ovechkin’s 22. Neither the Sharks nor Pavelski get the pub in this part of the world, but people inside the game speak in the most glowing tones about their excellence with the extra man.
To boot, they were about to go four-on-three, with all that extra ice and 3:49 on the clock.
You saw what came next. Or, if you were in there, you felt it.
Maybe for the first time all winter.
____________________
Rewind to 3 a.m. the previous day, and Perron’s bed.
“Honestly, I was fine on Friday. You saw me,” he was saying. I concurred. “But I woke up in the middle of the night with all these sweats and shivers, and I’m, like, ‘What’s going on?’ “
He never found out. But he did know he couldn’t play Saturday against the Coyotes, and he couldn’t even escape the sheets yesterday. He skipped the morning skate, and Mike Johnston told reporters he was ‘doubtful’ to face the Sharks, even as the coach acknowledged that — because of injury, salary-cap and waiver issues — his bench likely would go one forward and one defenseman short.
Perron heard that, too. He crowbarred himself upright, then into the car, then Downtown.
“No way I could let the guys play like that,” he recalled.
Seems that was anticipated. Upon arriving at Consol, Perron found a post-it note at his stall from Johnston, asking him to stop by the coach’s office.
“We talked,” Johnston said, “and he told me he’d at least like to give us three or five minutes or whatever he could. So we agreed he’d play on the fourth line to kind of keep his minutes down. He told me he’d be able to handle that.”
Yeah, he lied. After dragging through warmups and about 20 minutes before the opening draw, Perron had to run out of the home locker room for the nearest bathroom and … oh, use your imagination.
“Hey, goalies throw up all the time, right?” he reasoned. “I can do it, too.”
If possible, Perron would feel that much sicker in the final second of regulation, when a Crosby pass hopped across the San Jose slot and right onto his blade. But he shot wide.
“Ugh. Those keep you up at night.”
Not necessarily in a better way than the one he’d just experienced.
____________________
Let’s cut right through it: Consol has been a lousy place to take in hockey this season. To call the atmosphere dead is an insult to how the place might behave if filled with 18,000-plus cadavers. The chants are sparse and forced. The mood tightens like a noose at the first trace of trouble. I’ve heard it’s gotten so bad that fans who want to stand and cheer are being shouted down, told to shut up and take their seats.
Not on this night.
I’ve got no idea why, but not on this night.
Because from the moment Maxim Lapierre, Daniel Winnik, Brandon Sutter, Nick Spaling, Craig Adams, Rob Scuderi and Paul Martin were tasked with toughing this out, the crowd was strikingly supportive. And loud. Really loud.
“You feel that when you’re out there,” Crosby said. “Heck, we felt it on the bench. It makes a difference.”
Not as much as Lapierre winning all three defensive-zone draws. Or Winnik and Adams diving and sliding to block shots and passes. Or Scuderi, in perhaps his performance of the year, brilliantly holding up the hardest end of the inverted-triangle penalty-kill by boxing out cross-crease passes. The latter, above all, nullified Pavelski, who parked and waited and waited for pucks that never arrived. The four measly shots that made it were stuffed by Marc-Andre Fleury.
Take a look at all the action once again …
Johnston cited assistant coach Gary Agnew’s extra preparation, too: “We were fortunate to have prepared not only for their five-on-four but also their four-on-three. That helped.”
When the OT clock hit all zeroes, same as the Sharks’ goal total, the crowd erupted.
Maybe they were congratulating themselves a bit, too.
___________________
The mood on the bench was a match.
“When you see something like that, you’re just so pumped up,” Crosby said. “You see everything those guys were doing for us just to have that chance at the shootout …”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. Only the objective.
Perron lined up first. Grab some popcorn and sit back …
That, for anyone who has played or merely appreciated the world’s fastest sport, is disgusting.
Because no one should be able to hold a signature backhand move, one that everyone in the building — not least of whom is Alex Stalock in the San Jose net — knows is coming, and then still roof it authoritatively with barely a backhand flick of the wrist.
I shared my disgust with Perron afterward …
Crosby shared his disgust, as well. With just the three of us left in the room, Crosby snapped across to Perron, “You know, if I was right-handed, that’s the only move I’d ever use, too. Seriously, all you have to think about is getting it over the pad. You don’t even worry about the blocker.”
That’s because every goaltender’s glove hand is sharper than his blocker. And most blockers are on the right hand, right where Perron tormented Stalock.
Perron took it in stride: “Oh, I know. It’s a real advantage.”
Next on the ice, it was the captain’s turn. Pass the butter and salt …
Not so much disgusting as … intellectually efficient?
See, Crosby’s gotten markedly better on shootouts over the years, and he’s 5 for 9 this season.
Both these guys are quite good, actually …
But Crosby still doesn’t have that one move you’d submit to the trademark office. He prefers to get in tight, survey the scene and react accordingly. Or he’ll watch what the previous shooter, someone like Perron, might expose.
Or, as on this night, he’ll put 2 and 2 together.
“Did you see all the snow down there?” Crosby asked, regarding the end at which San Jose was shooting in overtime. “They had the power play and were down there the whole time.”
Right. And the ice, as a result, was more like ‘snow.’
“No way I was going to try a move down there.”
So, he coupled that knowledge with what Perron had just shown of Stalock’s blocker and simply blistered away.
Penguins 3, Sharks 2.
____________________
There’s nothing intrinsically special about this result, the stories aside. The home team took both games on a weekend that followed yet another trail of skepticism, maybe the ugliest of the season. Second place in the Metro was regained by matching the Islanders at 93 points. Generally speaking, the input and outcome were terrific but hardly transformational.
If anything stood out, actually, it was the crowd. Or whoever those people were.
In all candor, the first thought that crossed my mind when someone mentioned that the Penguins currently hold home-ice advantage for the first round of playoffs — the Islanders would have to come here — was that they’d be better off starting out at the Coliseum. Away from the skepticism and cynicism and the spewing of the same-old-Fleury garbage that surely will accompany the first puck that gets by.
Imagine the difference an engaged crowd, or an engaged broader public, could make. When the Steelers made the late push for a division title in December, the city passionately drove them. When the Pirates make so much as a cameo in the playoffs, it’s the stuff of piano music and parades.
The Penguins have 42 wins, two healthy superstars, one in line for another scoring title, a Vezina-level goaltender and, if he gets healthy, a Norris-level defenseman in Kris Letang. They’ve got a Hornqvist, too, for crying out loud, whose relentless drive and will to win should supersede any doubts anywhere. And they’ve achieved all this despite losing two critical players lost for the season and a million other man-games on the ledger.
But they’re dead and buried to so many. At least on the outside.
Johnston doesn’t get sappy much, to put it mildly. This one visibly moved him.
“We’ve got a lot going on right now, a lot of adversity, playing a man or two short,” the coach said. “I just told those guys in there that I’m proud of how we’ve responded. I like what I’m seeing.”
____________________
Perron unlaced his skates, stripped off the long socks.
“This team’s worth it, you know?”
He was describing his motivation for showing up in such a big way on this night. He could have been describing so much more.