Penguins' remaining defensemen are embracing bigger minutes

During Wednesday’s 3-0 home victory against the St. Louis Blues, rookie defenseman John Marino played on the team’s top pairing with veteran Kris Letang.

The duo offers plenty of intrigue between the dynamic skills of a five-time all-star such as Letang and the remarkably steady poise of the ephebic Marino.

But who would play the left side? Both are right-handers.

The solution was simple: They shifted side-to-side throughout the game.

But when?

“Whenever ‘Tanger’ told me to,” said Marino.

Fair enough.

Marino and virtually all of the other defensemen have been put into different scenarios over the past few weeks because of various injuries to their most established members of the blue line.

While Justin Schultz is expected to return to the lineup Friday against the Arizona Coyotes after a seven-game absence because of a suspected groin injury, Brian Dumoulin will be sidelined until at least late January after surgery on his left ankle. Additionally, defenseman Jack Johnson was scratched Wednesday (illness), and Letang is less than two weeks removed from an undisclosed injury that sidelined him for eight games.

That has meant an increase in minutes for the remaining able-bodied defensemen.

What changes when you go from, say, an average of 15 minutes per game to 19?

The answers vary for each player on the blue line.

“As a defenseman, it’s a little bit more of flow when you go from 15 to 19,” Marcus Pettersson said. “After a game, you can feel like you played more than you actually did, or your can feel like you played less than you actually did depending on how much you played in the beginning (of a game). Some periods, you can kind of sit for a while, and it feels like, ‘Oh, I didn’t play any,’ but you actually played 21. It feels a little bit different depending on how much you played at the end of the game or how the flow of the game was, stuff like that.”

Said Schultz: “Honestly, you don’t really feel it. If you’re going from 16 to (20), that’s a big jump. That’s usually due to special teams. Honestly, for me, I come off after games, and I have no idea of my time on ice.”

Perhaps the biggest difference comes with decision-making. Sound habits that are demanded by coaches under ideal circumstances are stressed even more with a banged-up blue line.

“Maybe in the back of your mind, you’re trying to conserve energy and not jump into the play when it’s not a good time,” Schultz said. “You’re not creating an odd-man rush. Just being smart. But I think you can do that all the time, being smart on when you’re going and when you’re not. Especially back-to-back games. You want to, obviously, play hard and do all the right things. But you’ve got to be smart about when you’re jumping up.”

Added Marino: “Just be a little bit more smart about jumping up in a play and kind of reserving your energy and being smart on when you’re using it. Obviously, if you’re getting a little bit more ice time, you want to be ready to go in the third period. As opposed to when you’re at 13 minutes, you’re not out there as much.”

Even beyond the physical demands required of four, five, six or more minutes per game, the duties of those specific extra minutes might be what are most daunting.

“It may just look like a minutes thing on the outside,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “But if you’re playing more minutes, it usually means you are playing against some of our opponents’ better players more often. Some minutes are harder than others. When you’re put into more significant situations, that’s how the minutes climb. For some guys, it’s within their comfort zone. With other guys, it might not be at that point.”

In Marino’s case Wednesday, that involved playing his off side.

“I guess the angles, you play the angles a little bit differently,” Marino said. “You’re on your backhand in the offensive zone. So you’ve got to be careful about that. But as long as you communicate and things like that, it’s not too much of a difference.

“Most players feel a little bit more comfortable on their strong side. There’s pros and cons to both. So you kind of just take what the game gives you.”

For most defensemen, they gladly will accept more ice time regardless of the circumstances.

“You play smart. You change when you can, not when you have to,” Johnson said. “But you do that regardless of how many minutes you’re playing. But that’s across the board. I don’t think there’s too much thinking involved in that.”

Said Sullivan: “These guys are just embracing the challenge. Whatever the team needs, they’re up for. Their attitude has really helped us have some of the success that we’ve had to this point.”

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