The Penguins may not have won Tuesday night, but they did leave Detroit with a clear message: Sidney Crosby isn’t going to get left alone anymore.
In a 7-4 preseason loss to the Red Wings, first-year Pittsburgh defenseman Declan Carlile made it plain that he saw part of his job as backing up the captain when Detroit started leaning on him physically. Carlile, along with Ilya Solovyov and Kaedan Korczak, repeatedly jumped in after Crosby took extra contact, turning several shifts into scrums instead of simple after-whistle annoyances.
“I just think it’s part of the game,” Carlile said in a postgame interview with PHN. “If you’re going to go after the best player in the world, I think it is what it is.
I think it’s kind of part of my game. It is what it is.
“Obviously, that’s not something I want to do all the time, but, like I said, if you’re going after the best player in the league, you’re going to have to answer a little bit.”
The first flashpoint came in the opening period, after Crosby had a scoring chance and was met with shoving around the net from Ben Chiarot. A couple of Red Wings quickly got involved, and Carlile and Solovyov arrived to make it a full scrum. As the players began to separate, Carlile was held back while still trying to get back at Chiarot.
Asked later about the idea that Crosby has sometimes had to fend for himself in the past, Carlile didn’t leave much room for doubt about where he stands.
“For him or for anybody - I think I’m in there to stick up for my teammates. I’m not afraid to shy away from that,” Carlisle said.
Solovyov echoed that mindset, saying the Penguins had to respond when Detroit took aim at Crosby.
“Of course, especially when the guys try to jump on the captain, on the legend of the hockey club. … I have to defend him because he’s the critical guy on the team who will make the results - him, (Evgeni Malkin), (Erik Karlsson), a lot of guys you have to defense because the teams, they know who the superstars and they will try to (get under his) skin,” Solovyov said. “Part of my job is just to settle down these guys.”
Carlile’s night eventually crossed the line into a heavier penalty. In the third period, he went after Detroit’s Wilmer Skoog along the boards after what he felt was another post-whistle shot he didn’t appreciate. The result was a double roughing penalty and a 10-minute misconduct.
“It just seemed like he got in a little shot after a whistle that I didn’t really like. I thought there were a couple of times that something like that happened,” Carlile said
“Obviously, in a regular-season game that’s probably not happening. I’m not going to be taking that penalty at the end. But I think it was just kind of, I’d had enough of it throughout the game.”
Penguins coach Dan Muse backed the general idea behind the pushback, even if the night got messy.
“You want to be making sure that you’re sticking up for your teammates, protecting your teammates - all teammates,” Muse said. “You want to be hard to play against. There’s different ways that that shows during the course of a game.”
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