John Marino picked a rotten year to be a rookie defenseman.

Not so much because of everything else that made 2020 a rotten year.

But because he has so much company.

One of the defining traits of the NHL’s 2019-20 campaign was there were so many freshman blue liners who stood out.

Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks and Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche each hit the 50-point mark and were voted as two of the three finalists for the Calder Memorial Trophy, which recognizes the NHL’s top rookie.

Throw in New York Rangers defenseman Adam Fox, who scored 42 points, and Marino isn’t likely to even garner consideration for the NHL’s postseason all-rookie team.

While Marino’s 26 points in 56 games is a sturdy figure, it’s easily overshadowed by his peers.

Marino isn’t terribly flummoxed by the lack of recognition.

“Obviously, they’re incredible players and well-deserving of the award, for sure,” Marino said a few weeks ago via video conference in Cranberry. “You don’t really worry about that much. We have training camp here and playoffs to worry about.”

There typically has been little to be worried about when Marino and his partner, Marcus Pettersson, have taken the ice this season. That notion was verified during Saturday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 of their qualifying round series in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.

Logging 16 minutes, 27 seconds of common five-on-five ice time together according to Natural Stat Trick, the Marino-Pettersson duo was the only of the Penguins’ three regular pairings that was not on the ice for a goal against.

Additionally, they were on the ice for the Penguins’ only even-strength goal. That score was created in part due to Pettersson making an aggressive pinch on Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher, which kept the puck in offensive zone.

A few moments later, Penguins forward Sidney Crosby scored the team’s first goal.

“Marcus is a guy who uses his reach and his mobility to his advantage,” coach Mike Sullivan said of the 6-foot-3 Pettersson. “He’s hard to play against by nature of that reach and he utilizes it extremely well.”

Marino’s exploits in the contest were primarily restricted to defense. But they were no less effective. He managed to snuff out a handful of individual rushes up the wings with strong skating or sound gap control.

“It’s great playing with him,” Pettersson said of Marino. “He’s a great player, he’s had a great rookie year here. I’m sure he’s going to keep getting better every day. Throughout our whole team and our whole (defensive) corp., there’s been a lot of injuries and playing with different players. It’s been a different year for sure. But playing with Johnny, he’s been so lights out the whole year. The way he reads the game, I think we kind of read the game the same way. So we talk a lot with each other and we can kind of reach off of each other. That helps a lot. Just thinking the game the same way and helping out each other, I think has been good for us.”

Much like virtually every aspect of the Penguins’ lineup, the marriage of Marino and Pettersson was created due to injuries.

In this case, a knee injury suffered by veteran right-hander Justin Schultz during a 4-1 road win against the Calgary Flames on Dec. 17 led to a promotion for Marino, also a right-handed shooter, onto the second pairing with Pettersson, a left-hander.

Since then, they remained arc welded to one another, with the exceptions of Marino missing 11 games due to a facial injury in February and March as well as the NHL’s four-plus month hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I can’t recall how it evolved, but obviously, the emergence of John Marino and the development of his overall two-way game has been a big part of it,” Sullivan said of his coaching staff’s decision to place them together. “Marcus’ game is continuing to evolve and improve as well. These are two pretty good defensemen. I can’t recall how the conversation started but obviously, we believe these guys are two real good defensemen. When we put them together, we felt as though they had an opportunity or they had a chance to be really effective.

“They can both skate, they both utilize their reach or their stick extremely well, they have good gaps, they defend our blue line extremely well. (They have) skillsets there that we think could fit together. And … these guys are pretty good two-way defensemen. We put them together. We’ve liked what we’ve seen to this point. But certainly, we felt as though when we first put them together that they had a chance to be good.

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“Just before Johnny got injured, I think we really settled in with each other and felt real comfortable with each other,” Pettersson said. “He was playing great all year. I think it was kind of around that point.”

If the Penguins are to rebound and defeat the Canadiens, let alone make a lengthy run in this postseason tournament, Marino and Pettersson will need to continue offering what they displayed in Game 1.

“We have pretty similar styles defensively,” Marino said. “He’s a great player. He’s easy to play with. He’s easy to read off of. We communicate really well. And even when we don’t, I kind of have a feeling of where he’s going to be.”

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