Sully Says: "It Was a Tale of Two Games Inside the 60 Minutes"

The Penguins came into Tuesday's game against the New York Rangers looking for two big divisional points after their win streak ended at seven games on Sunday in Carolina.
The Penguins then paid it forward, snapping the Blueshirts' win streak at seven games with a 3-2 victory at PPG Paints Arena.

Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and Sidney Crosby scored for Pittsburgh, while Tristan Jarry had 28 saves.
Rangers forward Chris Kreider got his team on the board just 22 seconds into the game, but after a rocky start, the Penguins found their footing midway through the second period, thanks to the power play.
Malkin lined up a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle, and thanks to a goalie screen from Rickard Rakell, it whizzed right over Igor Shesterkin's glove to tie the game at 1-1. The goal increased Malkin's point streak to nine games.

Less than five minutes later, the Penguins were on the man-advantage again. P.O. Joseph teed up a shot from the blueline, and Rust swooped in to bat the puck down and into the back of the net. Pittsburgh took the lead with 12.7 seconds left in the second period.
The Penguins have now recorded power-play goals in nine-consecutive games, the longest such run by the club since a 12-game stretch from Feb. 3-26, 2013. Only Tampa Bay (10) and Boston (10) have recorded longer such streaks this season.
Eight minutes into the third period, Crosby and Guentzel headed down on a 2-on-1 rush. The captain finished it off to give the Penguins a two-goal lead with 11:30 left in the game.
The Rangers would quickly answer less than two minutes later when Kreider netted his second goal of the evening. Pittsburgh native Vincent Trocheck sent the puck over to his winger, and he went top shelf. From there, the Rangers pushed for the tying tally, but the Penguins held strong defensively and came away with a huge divisional win.
Here is what head coach Mike Sullivan had to say about the hard-fought victory.
On what he felt like the turning point was, if there was one: "I almost feel like it was a tale of two games inside the 60 minutes. The first half of the game, we just weren't at our best. I don't think we had a whole lot of emotion. We were flatlined a bit. We weren't skating, we weren't getting to pucks, we weren't getting on top of them, putting them under pressure. It was just a lackluster kind of performance for the first half of the game. I thought somewhere in the middle of the second period, we started to get some life, we started to play with some juice. I think when we got the first power-play goal, it gave us some energy. We got a boost off of that. Then, I thought from that point on in the game, we were a better hockey team.
One of the things I said to the players is that in the absence of emotion, it's hard to be at your best in this game. We have to be invested emotionally first. And when we are, we're a good hockey team. We're a competitive hockey team. For whatever reason, and I really don't have one for you, it wasn't that way in the first half. I get that over the course of an 82-game schedule, sometimes you have those moments, if you will. But I thought the power play got us going a bit, then we started to play from there. Then you saw the semblance of the Penguins team that we've seen for a long time here.
On Jason Zucker, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with a lower-body injury:"He's one of the more vocal guys we have on our team. He engages a lot with that game away from the game, so to speak, with some of the talk that goes on between our opponents and our team on the ice. He's pretty good at that (laughs). I think sometimes, he has the ability to drag us into the fight, just with his energy, his competitiveness. He plays the game with a little bit of reckless abandon. Just getting in on the forecheck and using his skating and his edge to wreak havoc. I think that's when he's at his best."
On where Jarry is at in terms of comfort and confidence: "I think his game is really sharp right now. It has been for a while. He has calming influence. He made some tough saves look routine. He just reads plays so well. He gets to his spots. They hit him in the logo, but they're real good saves. I think that's when he's at his best. He has a calming influence on the group. He's a real competitive guy, but when he's at his best, he has a calm demeanor, it's economy of motion. A lot of that, I think, is just his hockey intellect. He reads the plays really well; he knows where the threats are. He can anticipate where the puck's going, he gets to his spots. And I think he's seeing it really well right now."
On this game had some postseason vibrations:"I don't know that I'd go that far. I'd like to think our playoff hockey is a much more complete game, but we have a lot of respect for their team, they're a good hockey team. And we've had a lot of close games against them over the last couple years. Every time we play them, they seem to go down on a one goal, it's big play here and there, it's a key play. That's just the nature of the game. I think there's such a fine line between winning and losing in today's NHL, so we've got to control what we can. We got to focus on our own team game, we've got to try to dictate the terms. We've got to try to impose our will, whatever vocabulary you want to use to try to explain how you have success. But anytime we are playing the Rangers, we've got some divisional opponents. We're playing in a good division, there's a lot of good teams. Everybody wins, that's what it seems like, anyways. So, every night is an opportunity for us to try to climb in the standings. We are trying to establish ourselves first and foremost as a playoff team. The best way you do that, from my experience, is you just stay in the moment; you focus on that one game in front of you. Tonight, it was the Rangers."