"We had a really good chance with that backhand, but it doesn't always happen that way," Crosby said. "But when it does, we can hopefully build some momentum off of that. That's kind of the goal."
Sullivan, though, doesn't put them together often, and he likely won't change his philosophy in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports), because of two reasons:
First, Sullivan thinks the Penguins' balance has been a key to their success in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and he abhors the idea of disrupting that.
"The line combinations that we've had and we'll continue to use, we have a comfort level with our balance that we have," Sullivan said. "We have strengths on every line that can play on both ends of the rink. We have a comfort level that our guys can play against anybody."
Secondly, by keeping Malkin and Crosby apart, it can lull the opposition into a false sense of security. That's when Sullivan can use what he calls his "coach's intuition" to put them over the boards together, creating the potential for a momentum-swinging shift that could lead to chaos on the other bench.
That's what happened in Game 2.