Column: With a little help from their friends

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Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz celebrate their connection for a goal in the second period Saturday. — GETTY

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

NEW YORK — The puck struck Maxim Lapierre with maximum velocity right in the … um …

“Honestly, I have no idea,” the Penguins’ fiery fourth-line center, born and bred for playoffs and hibernating through all else, told me as he stripped off his socks to search for a bruise. “I thought maybe it was here. But it can’t be. … Over here? … No. I have no idea.”

That’s when a slight grin beamed through that goatee.

“I really don’t care.”

He really didn’t, either. This happened in the third period of a seriously uptempo, uplifting 4-3 roiling of the Rangers last night at Madison Square Garden, one that evened this first-round Stanley Cup playoff series at a game a piece, and it was both ugly and a thing of beauty.

Because after Lapierre had dropped to a knee to block Derick Brassard’s point blast on what I’m fairly sure was New York’s 217th power play of the evening, he immediately buckled, slumped a bit to his left, limped … then moved right back in front of Brassard for more.

If that weren’t enough, once the Penguins took possession, rather than dumping the puck the length of the ice, he coolly skated through the neutral zone to tick off maximum time:

That’s the maximum contribution he could make.

“That’s really just Max,” Marc-Andre Fleury observed later. “He doesn’t even think about it.”

Hm. Maybe someone’s finally found the formula.

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Sidney Crosby scored twice. It was, in the statistical sense, a respite from a lot of flat-line precedent.

Crosby-2

But it also was more. He was flying. He was taking chances to create. He looked like he was having fun, for crying out loud, and I can’t remember the last time for that. If it’s ever happened.

Evgeni Malkin is lugging some level of injury, no doubt, but he was buzzing the New York end as much or more than the captain for sustained stretches, not to mention an above-and-beyond sweep of a puck off Fleury’s goal line to save a goal. With a sliver of luck, he’d have points to show, too.

Fleury was strong again, too, with several sharp saves among his 23 and a total falsely inflated by a typically hollow goal from the Rangers’ Mr. November, Rick Nash, with 5.1 seconds left.

Patric Hornqvist carried his usual load, as well. As did Paul Martin.

But these are expected contributions. These are the Penguins’ best, and they played like it.

They are absolutely, unequivocally not the one who won this game.

That was Lapierre. It was Brandon Sutter with a big goal and even bigger assist on a sweeping wraparound try. It was Taylor Chorney, who has ascended in a month from emergency tourniquet to potential mainstay. It was Ben Lovejoy, nearly matching Martin’s ice time at 24:08, including an absurd 8:26 short-handed. It was Rob Scuderi overcoming a soft start with 9:03 short-handed.

Above all in this group, it was Chris Kunitz.

Oh, for real.

Full confession first: When Kunitz looked as slow and clumsy and undisciplined in the first period as he has most of this season, I began thinking anew about those buyouts mentioned here Friday, as well as the novel idea of rehiring Ray Shero, only to fire him a second time for dramatic effect. Shero not only doled out the cap-crushing deals to Kunitz, Scuderi and others but also was the one who left the organization without any scoring depth at forward not named Beau Bennett.

But Kunitz, reunited with Crosby at the morning skate because Mike Johnston felt “it was the right move given their history,” came through with no less than a goal, two assists, a plus-2 rating and, just for kicks, a team-high five hits.

“It’s one game,” Kunitz basically deadpanned. “We worked hard, we kept the puck in their zone more, and we made some things happen. Now, we have to keep going.”

“Kuni was awesome,” Crosby assessed, more accurately. “Making plays everywhere.”

None better than on Crosby’s second goal, a chemistry major’s delight. Watch how, the moment the two separate, it was clear both knew what they’d hoped to achieve:

That won the game.

That made the difference.

Crosby and Malkin are always capable of plays like that. They don’t take their talents up into the attic when playoffs start. They don’t squirm or shrink. All that occurs is that opponents scheme to take them away, as the Rangers’ Alain Vigneault did to great effect in Game 1. Rather than assigning a shadow, he simply ordered his men to double-up Crosby and/or Malkin at every opportunity and leave the rest alone, correctly reasoning that no one else would hurt him.

Well, along came Game 2, and other Penguins did hurt him. And once that happened, as best evidenced on Crosby’s first goal set up by a hard Hornqvist effort — sorry, that’s redundant — in which he was left completely alone.

Systematically, too, the defensive positioning and breakouts were more structured than Game 1, and they actually weren’t that bad in that one, either. We isolate on individuals during breakdowns, and that’s fair. But a success on this scale is roster-wide.

New York’s Ryan McDonagh observed: “They were a lot more aggressive, and we didn’t spend nearly enough time in their zone.”

The discipline continued to lack, as the Penguins committed another seven minor penalties, six of them for fairly obvious stick infractions. That can’t keep happening, or the Penguins will lose this series no matter what else transpires around it. But I’ll still take this passion, this relentless push to get the puck and keep it, over the malaise we witnessed through most of March.

That said, even if the Penguins have earned most of their whistles — which they have — calling 12 of a series’ first 14 penalties on one team is laughable bordering on scandalous. They’re the Rangers, not the Angels. As several Penguins affirmed for me, there’s plenty enough going on out there that a better balance should be expected.

Take Exhibit A, this sickening head shot on Crosby by Carl Hagelin miles away from the puck:

If you doubt that Hagelin’s principal point of contact was with Crosby’s head, this angle eliminates all doubt that it’s eminently suspension-worthy.

Not even an interference minor. And there doubtless won’t be anything, either, from the NHL’s Department of Hilarious Inconsistency. Remember Marc Staal.

Anyway, I’ll also take how the Penguins have finally stopped complaining and kept playing …

That’s not about star power. That’s about everyone.

None of this is to excuse Crosby and/or Malkin. They don’t need to be excused.

They don’t need much help, either. But they sure as heck need some. And all the passenger forwards the Penguins have dragged along haven’t been help of any kind but for the occasional cameos.

Maybe this is a start.

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The series shifts to Pittsburgh now, so who knows?

The Penguins’ confidence might well be corroded the moment they set skates on the Consol Energy Center ice, where not much of worth has happened since the Flyers upstaged Mario Lemieux’s water-pouring christening and almost nothing of worth has happened in the playoffs.

I’ll be blunt here, and I don’t care who it ticks off: I sense a gaping divide right now between how this team feels about itself internally and how its fan base feels. I don’t know if watching a couple of road games on TV will overcome that. I don’t know if the expected sellouts Monday and Wednesday will share that energy or add to it or, the first time the first tiny thing goes awry, the place won’t hold its collective breath and suck all the life out of the proceedings. We’ve seen the latter so often.

But I do know this: The Penguins leave the world’s most-in-need-of-a-power-wash arena with more than home-ice advantage for the rest of the series. They leave with real momentum.

Hey, this is what everyone wanted, right?

They wanted the Penguins to be better in the playoffs than the regular season?

Check on that.

They wanted the playoffs to feel more like fun than pressure?

Well, they’re having fun, and the pressure is now formally on the No. 1 seed, not the No. .8.

I’m hearing and reading more and more people suggesting hockey interest is fading in Pittsburgh, even citing silliness such as how long it takes to sell out a game, as if that’s ever relevant.

Here’s betting against that.

“We want to get back home to our fans, to our crowd, and to keep playing like this with them behind us,” Fleury said, minutes after enjoying the W so heartily that, as he left the ice, he was mimicking the behind-the-back high-five of injured teammate and friend Kris Letang. “We want to be home. We want that a lot.”

Crosby chimed in from nearby: “Yeah, this is the fun part.”

I swear, he almost smiled.