This hypothesis may be short-lived because, so far this shortened season, just when you start to think there is reason to believe the Penguins are a legitimate contender there is a 2-0 loss to the Islanders or a blown 3-goal lead against the Flyers right around the corner.
But the recent play of three important Penguins has the proverbial arrow pointing up as they conclude their 5-game homestand tonight against the New York Rangers.
The first two are Kasperi Kapanen and Evgeni Malkin. A few games ago I had suggested that the Penguins should flip Malkin and Sidney Crosby to get Malkin going and balance the top two lines. What do I know? Instead, Malkin and Kapanen got going.
Since that Islanders debacle, Kapanen has 3 goals and 3 assists in the last four games. Malkin has 2 goals and 4 assists and, more importantly, just looks faster because he is playing faster.
"They've established some pretty good chemistry" says coach Mike Sullivan. "Geno's a really dangerous player off the rush he sees the ice so well he commands so much attention with Kappy's speed; Kappy can open up the ice for him and Geno can get the puck to Kappy. We really like their work together."
Kapanen says his recent sit-down with Sullivan helped him get back to basics. "we just talked about certain areas I needed to be better to help the team. It's not always about offense," he continues, "it's about taking care of business down low and that translates to the rest of my game.
Our line's been doing a good job of that. Everybody's confident, I feel confident, Geno looks great out there, he's making a lot of plays and looks like the Geno that's dangerous every night."
Jared McCann has also been a big part of that line's success with 2 goals and 2 assists the last four games and he will miss tonight's games but Sullivan got the good news that he was hoping for after McCann suffered an upper body injury Sunday, that McCann is day-to-day rather than long term. Evan Rodrigues is expected to fill that spot tonight.
The other player making a difference, as the Penguins had hoped he would, is defenseman Brian Dumoulin. Dumoulin wasted little time making his presence felt in his first game after missing five weeks by logging nearly 24 minutes. He only played 21:12 Sunday, probably because he didn't have to as the Pens pulled away at the end.
Sullivan says Dumoulin is not only a steadying force as the defensive complement to Kris Letang, but he quietly sets up the offense. "It's the subtleties of his game," Sullivan points out. 'He defends so well, he creates offense off of his defense. He makes good, clean outlet passes and gives out forwards opportunities to make plays off the rush."
"He has a high panic threshold, he doesn't just throw pucks away," the coach adds. "Some things are hard to quantify, you don't necessarily see them on the scoresheet but they certainly add up to helping us generate offense in the games."
Tristan Jarry will be back in goal. An earlier face-off, just after 6:00, at PPG Paints Arena.
