Even amid Penguins' stirring surge, need for youth persists

Come on. That's laying a welcome mat.

Bad enough that Carter's fourth line was stuck on the rink for a 1:50 shift. Worse that Carter still couldn't get off after an icing. Worse still that he'd get cleaned by Pontus Holmberg on the draw. And then ... I mean, box the guy out, the way the rookie Jack St. Ivany does just a few feet away. Or front the guy to try to play the pass. But don't just do nothing.

I'd long ago given up on Carter producing points, and I'll even tolerate to a tiny extent with his participation on the second power-play unit. But when he's also the team's worst possession forward by a metric mile -- when he's been on the ice at five-on-five through this 6-0-3 streak, the Penguins have a pathetic 30.63% of all shot attempts -- and he's registered zero takeaways and a whopping two blocked shots defensively ... one wouldn't think he'd be logging shift totals of 24, 23, 25, 22 and 17, as he has over the past five games.

It's nuts. He was out there, it seemed, every time I looked up from the laptop the other night. In the third period. Needing a goal to tie over much of that time.

Yet somehow, Smith's still a rung lower:

I can't. Just can't.

The Penguins were penalized only twice Tuesday and, on both occasions, he'd committed either a giveaway or a failed clear to afford the Maple Leafs the extra hold time that'd eventually lead to someone being sent to the box. The one above set the stage for Auston Matthews' power-play goal seconds later.

As the hockey adage goes, if Smith had gone into that glass with eggs in his pockets, they'd all have emerged uncracked.

Unlike Carter, he's still supposed to be scoring. He just doesn't, unless anyone cares to count his one goal over the past 18 games. When he's been on the ice at five-on-five over these past nine games, the Penguins have 43.26% of all shot attempts, lowest among all season-long forwards not named Carter.

Tired of this topic yet?

Yeah, me, too.

Here's the bug, though: Valtteri Puustinen, Jesse Puljujarvi and Emil Bemstrom have all fared worse in possession in this span, and both might've bottomed out in Toronto. They were the bottom three forwards on either side in the game, with Puustinen on for five Pittsburgh shot attempts against 17 for the opponent, and the other two basically being benched after a period.

That's hardly some cavalry.

They need to be better. All three. Or maybe Sam Poulin can spell one, since he's still around in civvies.

Bottom line: Long, long way to go for this group when it comes to getting deeper and, within that, getting younger. The past couple weeks have been a blast, and the next couple might be that much better. But no one should mistake anything that's being witnessed with some desirable status quo.

• So, the Capitals beat the Red Wings in regulation, 2-1, last night in Detroit to leapfrog the Penguins, the Islanders beat the Rangers, 4-2, in Elmont, N.Y., to pull two additional points away, and the Flyers' spectacle-level collapse continued with a -- yikes! -- 9-3 loss to the Canadiens in Montreal:

Nobody anywhere expected it'd be easy.

All three of tonight's games, by the way, are confined to the Western Conference.

• What kind of precedent's being fought on this front?

Oh, just this:

Let the record show that these Penguins were nine points out of a playoff spot -- more than any of the above teams -- with 11 games to go on March 28.

• Alex Nedeljković starts until they're eliminated. No discussion. No debate. It's his net. It's his team.

Besides, who'd think it worth the risk to find out now, of all times, how Tristan Jarry might handle shaking off 20 days of rust, not having started since March 22 in Dallas?

• Mike Sullivan's symbolic seat was never hotter than before this nine-game run. His actual seat never even warmed. This is why.