The Penguins focused on the Devils, not the Winter Classic
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As the idiom suggests, the devil is in the details.
For the Pittsburgh Penguins, the New Jersey Devils are the only detail of any significance at the moment.
Friday’s scheduled home contest against the Metropolitan Division rival has taken up all of the real estate in the Penguins’ attention span as they try to climb out of a stupor that has led to them losing four of their past five games.
As for their participation in Monday’s Winter Classic — a contest that gets framed as an event by the NHL’s promotional (and more importantly, financial) interests — that’s not even on their radar.
“I don’t think we’re too focused on the Winter Classic right now,” forward Bryan Rust said following a spirited practice session Thursday in Cranberry. “We know we haven’t been great lately. We’re solely 100% focused on this game tomorrow.”
Friday’s contest is arguably more important than Monday’s spectacle. Especially considering the Penguins’ malaise as of late as well as the opponent.
Through Wednesday, the Devils (22-11-2, 46 points) sit in second place of the Metropolitan Division, just ahead of the third-place Penguins (19-10-6, 44 points). One of the NHL’s biggest surprises this season, the Devils boast the league’s longest winning streak of 2022-23 thanks to the 13 consecutive wins they pieced together during an outstanding stretch through October and November.
But they’ve come back to earth in December, having lost eight of their past nine (1-8-1).
So, it’s a big game to them for reasons similar to the scuttling Penguins. Their most recent result — a rancid 5-4 overtime loss at home to the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday in which they surrendered a four-goal lead — was still on their minds approximately 14 hours later.
“Everyone is a little bit (ticked) off with how things have gone,” Rust said. “That’s good. Anger is a useful emotion. It gets guys playing a little bit harder. It gets guys a little bit more focused. We’re going to try to channel that in the right way.”
What exactly is entailed in “the right way?”
“Probably don’t get scored on five times in a row,” quipped defenseman Jan Rutta. “That would be pretty good. It would be a start.”
Rutta’s wry humor noted, he’s not off base. At least not when you consider what coach Mike Sullivan offered in response to a query as to what has ailed his team as late.
“We’re a team that has the ability to be stingy defensively,” Sullivan said. “When you focus on playing the game the right way, a lot of times, you create offense off of (defense). … When you don’t, sometimes it becomes a lot more difficult to create offense. I don’t think we’ve controlled five-on-five play the way that we did for long stretches of the season as of late. That’s an area that’s a focus.”
The Winter Classic is not part of that focus, at least not immediately from an internal perspective.
“Right now, we’re focused on New Jersey,” forward Jason Zucker said. “These guys have been playing really well this year. We’ve got to come out and play strong. That’s going to put us in a better spot to succeed in the Winter Classic if we have a good game tomorrow.
“We know that it’s unacceptable what happened yesterday. The past few games, it’s been slipping into our game a little bit. We know we need to be better. We had a good practice today and hopefully, we can carry that into tomorrow.”