Compared to where it stood last year, the Penguins' power play has showed improvement through the first 30 games of the season: They have the ninth-most power play goals (19) in the NHL and rank eighth in power-play goal differential as they've only allowed one short-handed goal. A year ago, the power play ranked 28th and led the league-lead in short-handed goals allowed, this while averaging the seventh-most time on ice. 

Mike Sullivan was asked about that Wednesday and replied, "I think they’ve made a significant difference and what I like about them is they are scoring goals and we’re not giving up any, quite honestly. That’s the difference. So, for me the biggest thing is in the process and how they are going about it. The players that have been on it, have been doing a good job. It’s been a little bit of a mixed bag, we’ve had our moments when we’ve been really good and we’ve had our moments when it’s been a bit of a struggle."

Sullivan said that success stems from having better entries into the zone while also buying into the game plan that David Quinn has put in place.

"When I look at the body of work of the group of players, regardless of what those combinations look like, their entries have been much better, we went from one of the bottom teams in the league in entries to around 10th or 11th, and that gives us a chance. If you win faceoffs and have successful entries, you've got a chance to establish zone time and it gives them an opportunity to act on their instincts and do what they do best. Then it’s just a matter of executing night in and night out."

It's no secret that Drew O'Connor has struggled this season, not having scored since Oct. 18 and, in the 24 games since, producing only five assists.

Mike Sullivan was asked Wednesday after practice what can be done to help O'Connor.

"It’s everything from knowing your faceoff responsibilities, win or lose, knowing what your responsibilities are on the forecheck, getting to the net-front when we have possession, simplifying the game, shooting the puck, trying to get inside the dots, things of that nature," Sullivan replied. "When you play the game the right way, the byproduct is, you’ll find a way to create offense. So, if players simply focus on -- and it’s human nature -- if you just dwell on the fact that you haven’t scored, the conversation you have with yourself is ‘I gotta score, I gotta score, I gotta score,’ and it makes it harder to score. So that’s really the conversation, the advice and the suggestions that we are giving OC, right now."

Sullivan doesn't think O'Connor's necessarily struggling overall.

"Would we like him to find the back of the net a little bit more? Sure," Sullivan said. "But he's a big part of our penalty-kill, he's a great puck pursuit guy, he's willing to block shots, he's a sound consciousness player defensively, so there's other aspects of the game where he's helping us." 

Hello from the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. I'll be here throughout the morning to provide coverage of practice before the team heads to Montreal for their matchup tomorrow.

• Full attendance for practice today. No white non-contact jerseys after Phil Tomasino's return to the lineup last night as well.

Lines and pairings:

Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Phil Tomasino - Evgeni Malkin - Cody Glass
Michael Bunting - Blake Lizotte - Drew O'Connor
Kevin Hayes - Noel Acciari - Anthony Beauvillier

Owen Pickering - Kris Letang 
Marcus Pettersson - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves - Matt Grzelcyk

Ryan Shea, Matt Nieto and Jesse Puljujarvi are extras. 

Hey, guys. With Jose in Dallas and Taylor heading to Montreal for tomorrow's game, I'll be filling in for practice today. It starts at noon. 

I mean, really, how much of Tristan Jarry does everyone inside the Penguins' orbit need to see to be completely convinced that he's precisely what he is, what he's always been?

It's been 11 years since he was drafted, nine years since his NHL debut here, and he's yet to impress upon anyone here so much as a single impactful memory, aside from scoring a goal himself a year ago and, of course, for setting up a playoff overtime winner ... for the opponent:

DKPS

Sorry. Too easy.

But then, maybe it's needed. Because here we are, in yet another season where far too much about this franchise as a whole is being defined by Jarry's goaltending, not least of which was the 6-2 loss to the Avalanche on this Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, where the crowd of 15,632 could collectively groan after five of Colorado's first 23 shots.

Some real stinkers in there, too:

Nathan MacKinnon's a glorious talent, and he'd wind up with five points, but that wrister glides under Jarry's left armpit, an unsightly scene even if it weren't from such distance.

Mikko Rantanen doesn't rank much below MacKinnon, and he'd wind up with a hat trick and five points of his own, but ... uh, yeah.

That one up there was the coup de gross, at least for me. I can take whiffing on a wrister. I can take the odd bad-angle bummer. What I can't take is a lack of fight.

Oh, I dig into all the guilty parties on this backbreaking Valeri Nichushkin power move just below, but that doesn't mean the goaltender gets off. Not when Jarry's heels stay planted way back beneath his bleeping crossbar. Not when Nichushkin's permitted to cut across the crease as if that's his territorial right. And certainly not when, as one NHL evaluator would share with me up in the press box, Jarry should've "chopped him down like a tree coming through there."

But that's what he is, what he's always been.

I asked Jarry afterward to describe that goal:

"He's a big guy, he's got a long reach," he'd begin, referring to Nichushkin's 6-4, 210-pound stature. "And I think I was just being a little too aggressive, trying to poke the puck as he was pulling it from backhand to forehand, and he was able to get around me just with his long reach."

I respect that response. He's paid to tend goal, so he's a first-hand expert. What's more, I'm certain that he means every syllable he's speaking there.

But go back up and watch the goal again, including all the replay angles illustrated, and good luck selling that as aggressive. Or even peripherally competitive.

Look, I'm not about to pile on here. I've seen enough. That's all.

I no longer care if this is about the Penguins continuing to treat a 29-year-old as if he's still somehow a prospect with upside. Nor do I care if this is Kyle Dubas trying to salvage a five-year, $26.9 million contract that's stuck to the team's payroll ledger through 2028. Nor do I care how Dubas might go about moving him to another team, nor how much Fenway Sports Group money might need to be gulped in the process.

I do care that this team for-real could've won this game, with even a couple of above-average saves at various points. And that this team had won six of seven before this. And that the bulk of this player group's giving all it can. And that, looking further ahead, part of the challenge in building with youth will include not fearing that every flipping mistake will wind up a minus.

I also care that Jarry's save percentage is now a sorry .881, seventh-worst among the 50 NHL goaltenders to have appeared in 10-plus games this season.

And that, stunningly, he's now given up a goal within the first five shots he's faced in nine of the 11 games he's started, including this one. Four times, he's been beaten by the first shot.

Maybe Mike Sullivan's caring, as well, judging by his terse reply when asked if Jarry had just taken a step back: "Yeah, I thought so. I didn't think he was as good tonight."

That's not how Sullivan generally assesses his goaltending in public.

Enough already. Joel Blomqvist's 22, same age as Matt Murray when the latter arrived as a rookie, only to lift the Stanley Cup that ensuing summer, and he's shown plenty enough that he never should've been sent back to Wilkes-Barre, least of all for a long-established lost cause.

Figure it out. This ain't it.

Even setting aside Tristan Jarry's passivity, there was plenty more to loathe about the Valeri Nichushkin power-move goal from the Pittsburgh perspective, beginning with how he didn't even have any momentum crossing the attacking blue line. Started from a standstill:

From there, Rickard Rakell, who's the high forward, or F3, and has arrived in plenty of time to apply back-pressure, instead skates a wide, aimless circle in the Penguins' zone. Marcus Pettersson just gets scorched wide. And Erik Karlsson, who might've moved across in a clear emergency, barely budges.

I asked Mike Sullivan what he saw there, and he replied, "Yeah, we had numbers back. We just got beat. We could've had backside help. We didn't get backside help. We didn't have back-pressure, either. It's a combination of things."

Pettersson's view: "Yeah, that's unfortunate. I made a misread on that 4-2 goal, and that's a killer. I stopped in the neutral zone. He's a very good player, a deceptive player. I made a bad read."

• I'm running out of ways to describe how devastatingly awful Matt Grzelcyk's been, even as opponents appear to torment him, but his formula on this night at least was familiar:

Yeah, the old ill-timed, ill-advised, ill-supported pinch. Just take one look at Blake Lizotte still being low -- and in full view -- to know that Grzelcyk had no business bumping up there, particularly with Nathan MacKinnon out there. That's not a system issue. That's just ... bad.

I can't anymore with this guy. I just can't.

• Sidney Crosby vs. his best bud MacKinnon didn't exactly bubble over: Sid had no points, two shots, five attempted shots and, at the least, a superb 27-10 showing on faceoffs, while MacKinnon had a goal, four assists, a plus-4 rating and all of the wow factors available. Imagine them on a line together in a couple months.

• It was terrific to see Phil Tomasino back and, almost instantly, creating offense again. No trace of his upper-body injury. Can't afford to have him cooling off.

• It was equally terrific to see Cody Glass rewarded with another all-around solid effort with his first goal in this sweater, thanks to an exceptional look from Evgeni Malkin:

"It was a good feeling," Glass would say of scoring. "At one point, I didn't think I was ever gonna score again. But that's what happens when you play with Geno. He'll find you anywhere."

Dude's got some offense to him. He's no plugger. Mike Sullivan slid him up to the second line with Geno and Tomasino, bumping Drew O'Connor down, and he made it stand up.

• Several players on the roster are more talented than Michael Bunting, but only Bunting plants himself in places to score goals like these:

There's no reason, between what's above, all his other offense of late and his innate ability to fill the bumper role on the power play, that he shouldn't be on the No. 1 unit. As in, now.

• Scratching Jesse Puljujarvi and suiting up Noel Acciari -- yet again the Penguins' least productive player in terms of general team possession -- blows my mind, no matter how often similar moves get made. One player's been immensely visible, at least when he's permitted to participate, and the other brings borderline nothing.