Observations from the Penguins' 6-0 win against the Coyotes.
Today was a rare day... and not because it's Leap Day.
The 3 p.m. trade deadline shifted any attention on tonight's game to maneuvers off the ice. And given that tonight's opponents actually swung two trades with one another today, the fact that there was 60 minutes of regular season hockey scheduled tonight was almost irrelevant.
That hour-long exhibition of ice hockey was remarkably one-sided. It was as one-sided as you can get in the salary cap-influenced NHL of 2016. But the Penguins, with most of their key players healthy, ravaged a struggling Coyotes team which lost one of its best players this afternoon via trade in left winger Mikkel Boedker.
Their last two games - including Saturday's 4-1 defeat of the struggling Jets - were important. Each game was an easy two points for the Penguins and they earned them in businesslike fashion. They built up a little momentum before they head into the gauntlet of their schedule in March which is chock-full of Neapolitan Ice Cream Metropolitan Divisional games.
The Penguins are now poised to do something they haven't done for a while and take a leap up in the standings.
What Happened
The Penguins took a 1-0 lead 5:42 into the contest. After Penguins left winger Chris Kunitz knocked a puck away from Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Penguins center Sidney Crosby snapped a pass from the left corner to the crease where it hit a body and came to a stop. Right winger Patric Hornqvist fended off Coyotes defenseman Michael Stone and Ekman-Larsson then backhanded the puck by the right skate of goaltender Louis Domingue. Crosby had the lone assist.
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They made it a 2-0 game with 2:14 left in the first period. Taking a cross-ice feed from Crosby, Kunitz chipped a pass from the right wall toward the cage. Hornqvist was skating through the right circle and deflected the puck just enough that it glanced off Domingue's glove and into the cage. Assists went to Kunitz and Crosby.
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It became a 3-0 contest at 9:47 of the second period. Crosby corralled a loose puck in the left circle and backhanded a pass to defenseman Kris Letang at the right point. Letang ripped a wrister at the cage which Kunitz deflected through Domingue's five hole. Letang and Crosby netted assists.
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The rout was on 1:19 later. Working on a power play, center Evgeni Malkin drew in Ekman-Larsson in the right circle and fed a pass to Hornqvist all alone to the left of the crease. Hornqvist swiped a one-timer by Domingue's glove hand to complete his hat trick. Malkin and right winger Phil Kessel had assists.
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Letang powered a slapper from the right circle with 1:45 left in regulation to make it a 5-0 game. Defenseman Olli Maatta and Hornqvist got assists.
A wrister by center Matt Cullen from the left circle 16 seconds later hit off of Domingue and hopped into the net to cap off the scoring. Assists went to right winger Bryan Rust and defenseman Ian Cole.
The Penguins
-The top line really drove this win. Hornqvist, Crosby and Kunitz really read off each other fairly well. They looked like they realized the Coyotes were vulnerable and dug their talons into them.
-The fact that Hornqvist's third goal came on a power play was not insignificant. The Penguins had failed to score a power-play goal for nine consecutive games. Getting one tonight was a step in the right direction. They only went 1 for 5 and they weren't very sharp on the other four chances they had but just getting one was big.
-A key moment in this game came midway through the first period. With the Penguins up, 1-0, the Coyotes had a chance at a lengthy two-man advantage but held on to the puck while working a five-on-four power play. Had they surrendered the puck earlier, they could have had a five-on-three advantage for at least 1:10. Instead, they passed around and at one point, they even cleared the offensive zone by themselves and lost the puck into their end boards. By the time the Penguins claimed it, the Coyotes only ended up getting 38 seconds of a five-on-three power play. As it was, they didn't really look that impressive with that time.
-We're not sure if this Coyotes team, as presently constructed, would have scored with a longer five-on-three chance but a goal there could have taken this game down a different path.
-We're not sure goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury was tested that much but he got a shutout. He was tuned in.
The Coyotes
-This might have been the worst team we've seen in person all season. They just looked defeated once the Penguins took a lead. It had to be a tough day for them given Boedker's departure. This looks like a team in contention for the presumed No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft, Auston Matthews.
-Former Penguins left winger Sergei Plotnikov, traded down the hallway, earlier in the day, made his Coyotes debut. Playing primarily on the fourth line, he had 12:10 of ice time on 17 shifts, one shot, one minor penalty and was credited with six hits. He seemed to be willing to throw his body around. Perhaps he wanted to prove something.
-Domingue just looked like a man who was shattered most of the night. The Penguins attacked him from the get go and he just didn't have it.
Quotable
-Head coach Mike Sullivan talked about his first line:
“Obviously, you can see their production on the score sheet. We were glad to see they got rewarded tonight for their efforts. I think they've been playing hard as of late here the last week or so. It hasn't necessarily translated on the score sheet in the last week or so but tonight, it did for them. … I thought [Malkin's] line was really good as well. When we have those two lines going, I think we're that much more difficult to play against. [Hagelin] gets a couple of goals the last game. [Malkin's] line was on the score sheet a lot [Saturday]. Sid's line was on the scoresheet tonight. For me, that's the essence of team play.”
-Hornqvist joked about getting his first career hat trick:
"I think I had almost 20 games with two goals and I couldn't get the third one. It was nice to get one tonight."
-Sullivan on Hornqvist:
"Regardless if whether [Hornqvist] scores or he doesn't score, he brings a lot to the table. He's one of those guys, he's a meat-and-potatoes player. He goes hard to the net. He plays in the battle areas. He helps you retrieve pucks in the offensive zone. He blocks shots in the defensive zone. So he plays a hard game and he's difficult to play against. Obviously, we need him to score goals. It helps when he can contribute there for sure. But he brings so much to the table for our team as far as making us more difficult to play against. It's nice to see him get a few goals tonight."
-Maatta talked about the unique nature of preparing for a game on trade deadline day:
“Obviously the preparation of the game is going to be different. I know a lot of guys were definitely watching the trade deadline, see what was going to happen there. I know I was. But I think we did a good job preparing for the game. We had a great start and I think that set us up pretty pretty good."
-Crosby's noted the "geography" of a few of his team's goals:
“A couple of [Hornqvist's] goals are right outside the crease as usual. [Kunitz] is there, the tip. He's right there. No secret, that's where you need to go to score goals and guys did a good job of doing that.”
-Maatta spoke of the importance in beating two struggling teams the past two games:
“We have a couple of games in hand on the teams below us and we really have to take advantage of the games we have and I think we've done a good job the last couple of games.”
-Letang assessed his team now that it's healthier:
“I think we're a dangerous team. Now that [Malkin's] back, [center Nick] Bonino's back. I think we're a dangerous team. We just have to get better as a unit of five on the ice. But otherwise, we're shaping up to be a pretty good team.”
-Tomorrow's game against Washington is key for Maatta:
“It's big. It's a big game. They're a good team. It's a good test for us for sure. It's the same mentality. We have a couple of games in hand and we have to be ready to go. ... Now we're healthy. We're all back together. Definitely it's a measuring stick. It's nice to see where we're at."
-Coyotes coach Dave Tippett had an interesting thought on the hit statistic:
“You look at that game, I don't know how many hits we ended up with, probably 35 hits. [46 actually] Guys are running around trying but that just means guys are late on things and you don't have the puck. That's artificial energy.”
Numbers
-The Penguins had a 33-30 edge in shots.
-Coyotes defenseman Kevin Connauton led the game with six shots.
-Hornqvist led the Penguins with five shots.
-Letang led the game with 26:38 of ice time.
-Coyotes defenseman Michael Stone was right behind him with 26:15.
-The Penguins had a 32-30 edge in faceoffs (52 percent).
-Crosby was 14 for 23 (61 percent).
-Coyotes center Kyle Chipchura was 10 for 14 (71 percent).
-Cole, Letang and Stone each led the game with four blocked shots.
Historically speaking
-We were incredibly proud of looking up this statistic. In addition to being his first career hat trick, Hornqvist's hat trick was the first Leap Day hat trick in Penguins history. Overall, there have been three Leap Day hat tricks in games involving the Penguins and they're all spread out in 20-year intervals:
| Player, position | Year | Game |
| Patric Hornqvist, RW | 2016 | Penguins 6, Coyotes 0 |
| Gary Roberts, LW | 1996 | Flames 7, Penguins 3 |
| Ted Irvine, Blues | 1976 | Blues 5, Penguins 3 |
-This was the Penguins' first hat trick vs. the Coyotes/Jets franchise since it moved to Arizona. The last Penguins' hat trick vs. this franchise was a four-goal effort by center Petr Nedved in a 9-4 home win March 5, 1996.
-Hornqvist broke into the franchise's top 100 scorers all-time. He is now in 98th place with 89 points. He surpassed right winger Chuck Arnason (86 points), defenseman Jiri Slegr (86 points) and defenseman Matt Niskanen (85 points).
-Sullivan (17 wins) broke a tie with Lou Angotti (16) for the fewest coaching wins in franchise history.
-Fleury's shutout was the 43rd of his career.
-This was the Penguins' first shutout of the Coyotes/Jets franchise since it moved to Arizona. Their last shutout vs. this franchise was a 1-0 road win by goaltender Tom Barrasso Feb. 16, 1996. He made 32 saves.
-The Coyotes have lost six consecutive games.
Visuals
-Highlights:
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(Photo: Matt Freed/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
