When I rode along with Evgeni Malkin at season ticket delivery, he talked about how missing the playoffs the last three years was a terrible feeling.
“If me, Sid, Tanger play together, play one time in playoffs, like, one more time – who knows if win, lose – just play together one more playoffs run,” he said.
At the time, outside expectations and projections had the Penguins missing the postseason yet again. But as of Jan. 30, they ranked second in the Metro Division and had an 84.9% chance to get in, per moneypuck.com.
They have won five in a row, are 6-0-2 in their last eight, and 12-2-2 since coming back from the holiday break. With the Penguins rolling like they are to get in this position, I asked Anthony Mantha a cliché question: what’s behind their success?
“Honestly, I think it's just the way every single person in here is playing,” he said. “Everyone's clicking. The D pairings are clicking well, and they're contributing, also. Obviously, the goalies are playing really well.”
Mantha then said with a laugh, “cliché question, cliché answer. But honestly, that's just how it is. Like, if you look at the time on ice, I mean, everyone is pretty much between 13 and 18 minutes. So, we're rolling lines, and no matter who's on the ice, something can happen. That's what we've been seeing.”
Here’s what I’ve been seeing, to add onto that.
COACHING STAFF DYNAMIC
From the beginning, Dan Muse said he wanted a coaching staff with a mix of experiences, backgrounds and ideas. So, they brought in Todd Nelson and Mike Stothers, hockey lifers with winning pedigrees. They brought in Nick Bonino and Rich Clune, two younger coaches who aren’t very far removed from the game and have excellent relationships with the guys. They joined Andy Chiodo, who’s a gem of a goalie coach and a human.
It has turned out to be a fantastic dynamic, and the guys are clearly responding to it, as the coaches are getting the most out of them. They bring so much energy and camaraderie, finding a good balance between seriousness and levity. They have a ton of hockey knowledge. They’re easy to talk to, and communicate well. They all care about and love what they do. As someone who has spent time with them on the road, that crew is such a pleasure to be around. They're great people who make everybody feel welcome. And they have done an excellent job of setting the foundation starting on Day 1 of training camp, and building from there.
“I think we're still continuing to establish (our identity),” Muse said. “Every night, you have to show it again. But I think what we've been showing there is just, it's a team that's going to work at both ends of the ice. Just relentless in our puck pursuit, relentless in our working above, in our defensive play.
“Then, we're playing a united game, a connected game, where when we transition to offense, we do it together. We find each other, and then back to being relentless on the attack. Then you press repeat, and you do it again.”
LOCKER ROOM DYNAMIC
I’ve seen a lot of locker room dynamics in 15 years of working for the team, and this one ranks up there. I think that translates onto the ice. Parker Wotherspoon was saying the other day that the culture here is incredible, and it all starts with Sidney Crosby, the consummate teammate, leader and ambassador.
But it’s been cool to watch how Evgeni Malkin has really taken the Russian-speaking Penguins under his wing. He said on the same car ride I mentioned earlier that he wanted to try to help the young guys a little bit, and he has followed through. Malkin took Arturs Silovs to his first NBA game when the team was in Toronto, and they’ve gone out for sushi here in Pittsburgh. In Sweden, Sergei Murashov joined them for a meal. In Vancouver, the group expanded to Egor Chinakhov and Ilya Solovyov for dinner at Blue Water Café. “It’s perfect. He’s like our father here,” Solovyov said with a laugh. “Try to teach us everything."
So, there’s tremendous leadership from the core group that also includes Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson and Bryan Rust. They've accomplished so much in this league, and everyone respects them, but they don't take themselves too seriously when they're amongst the group. Karlsson in particular is one of one. There are the veteran presences with hearts of gold who are quick to chirp and the first to help out, like Anthony Mantha and Kevin Hayes. There are genuinely nice human beings, like Rickard Rakell, Stuart Skinner, Blake Lizotte, and Noel Acciari. There are characters like Connor Clifton. You’ve got under-the-radar glue guys like Ryan Shea and Connor Dewar. You’ve got the 18-year-old rookie Ben Kindel that everyone loves, respects and gets a kick out of.
I could go on, and I don’t mean to leave anyone out, but you get the point – that room is filled with great, down-to-earth individuals, and they get along so well as a group. There are different factions that hang out on the road, but it doesn’t feel clique-y. And when the Penguins have the chance to get together as a team, they take it – like when Rust invited everyone over to watch the Steelers. It’s so much fun coming to work every day and covering this team.
NEXT MAN UP
The next-man-up mentality is another cliché, but they’ve really embraced it, especially lately. When Karlsson went down, you thought about everything the world-class defenseman brings and it was like, oh man – how are they going to make up for that? Well, they banded together and picked up at least a point in each of the five games he missed, going 3-0-2. Same goes for Rust, who just served the first game of his three-game suspension. The rest of the group stepped up.
EXECUTING THE PLAN
Kyle Dubas has repeatedly said the Penguins have a plan to return to real contention as soon as possible.
One of the facets of that plan was giving guys an opportunity here when they maybe didn’t have it elsewhere. “If you're a player who hasn't gotten the opportunity you think you deserve or you are coming off an injury, we want to become the place where you know we're going to get the most out of you,” Dubas said. Players like Mantha, Shea, Wotherspoon and Justin Brazeau have taken advantage.
Another facet of that plan was to fill that lack of younger NHL players between the ages of 22-25. The biggest recent addition in that regard is Egor Chinakhov, who has eight points (6G-2A) in 14 games, has helped Penguins go 10-2-2 with him in the lineup, and found chemistry on a line with Evgeni Malkin.
Overall, Dubas and his staff are doing a phenomenal job. They have put in the work to identify so many of the players who have contributed to the current success through the draft, free agency, and trades, and built a developmental system to help them grow in every facet.
MOMENTUM SHIFTS
We’ll see what happens moving forward. There’s still a long way to go. But a big source of optimism is the leadership group's experience, as both Muse and Mantha mentioned. And they have learned from experience this season, both good and bad. December was particularly tough for the Penguins, who gave up leads and points. But they've been able to self-correct much better as of late, when they aren't already asserting themselves.
As Dubas told Josh Getzoff in the GM Show, “We've been able to really stop the bleeding much better than we did. I think that's a credit to the players and to the coaching staff for their work together. And it's been a lot of fun for me to watch.”
Couldn’t agree more.
