Brian Dumoulin makes loud and clear difference for Penguins

The Penguins dressing room has sounded a little different over the past week or so.

After all, Brian Dumoulin is back in the lineup.

And he picks the music.

“Our locker room DJ,” forward Kasperi Kapanen said. “We’ve got the tunes back on.”

“He’s good about mixing it up,” goaltender Casey DeSmith said. “Sometimes, we’ll come in, and there will be country on in the morning. That’s my personal preference. But before the game, it’s a lot of house music and rap and stuff like that. He does a good job of not letting it get old and changing up the playlist and stuff like that.”

Dumoulin’s Spotify selections notwithstanding, there’s a far more important audible alteration to the Penguins’ inner sanctum over the past handful of days.

Dumoulin’s voice.

As one of the more tenured members of the organization, his words carry considerable weight with his teammates.

“Off the ice, he’s one of the big guys in the locker room,” second-year defenseman John Marino said. “He’s been there for a while. He’s definitely one of those veteran guys that kind of has a presence about him.

“When he speaks, you listen.”

The only problem is, Dumoulin hasn’t had many opportunities to speak, at least in person.

Over the past 16 months, various injuries (as well as the pandemic) have limited Dumoulin to 21 games.

First, a gruesome injury he suffered Nov. 30, 2019, left him with lacerated tendons in his left ankle.

After a three-month recovery, Dumoulin returned to the lineup by early March 2020.

After getting in five games, Dumoulin was sidelined again, but it was for the same reason most of us were sidelined to some degree.

Covid-19.

When the NHL staged its postseason tournament beginning in August, Dumoulin was in the lineup, but the Penguins’ malfunctions limited them to only four games and led to a long offseason lasting approximately five months.

Dumoulin’s 2020-21 campaign started, as expected, with him riding shotgun on the top defensive pairing with Kris Letang.

But he again was hobbled Jan. 26 when he tumbled to the ice blocking a shot during a 3-2 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins.

After another respite, this time lasting five weeks, he returned to the lineup March 6.

Since then, the Penguins have enjoyed a season-best five-game winning streak.

If you listen to his coach, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

“(Dumoulin) is an important player for our team for a lot of reasons,” Mike Sullivan said. “Not only is he a real good hockey player, but he’s an important leader on top of that. His voice on the bench, his voice in the room.

“What he brings to our defense corps — just his calming presence in not only through his voice but also in how he plays the game — I think that’s why he’s been such a great partner for a player such as Kris Letang. I think he helps (Letang) become a better player, it allows (Letang) to do some of the things that allow him to play to his strengths, join the rush and be a little more active offensively because (Dumoulin) is a guy that’s a stay-at-home guy that is so positionally sound and makes such good decisions. He’s an unsung, unrecognized player sometimes because of a lot of the star power that we have. But I can’t say enough about the importance that he brings to this team.”

A lot of the stats bear that out, including the most important one.

Wins.

This season, the Penguins are 9-2-1 when Dumoulin is in the lineup and 8-7-0 without him.

Digging a little deeper, the goals — for and against — offer a considerable difference depending on Dumoulin’s availability.

The men who have to stop the opposing shots seem to recognize a clear difference when Dumoulin is available.

“He just plays a really intelligent game,” DeSmith said. “Always makes the right play. He’s physical. He does all the little things really well. He’s definitely a key piece to our defense.”

Defense always will be Dumoulin’s calling card. With apologies to Dave Burrows, he might be the greatest defensive player in franchise history.

But his offense should not get overlooked, even if his single-season high is 23 points.

During a 5-1 home win against the New York Rangers on March 7, forward Sidney Crosby scored the Penguins’ third goal on a dazzling dash through the opposing defense.

It would not have been possible without Dumoulin, who skated the puck out of his zone and zipped a head-man pass to Crosby at the offensive blue line with enough speed to spring Crosby on his surge into the Rangers zone.

“He defends so well, he creates a lot of offense off of his defense,” Sullivan said. “He makes good, clean outlet passes that give our forwards an opportunity to create off the rush. He may not end up on the scoring sheet because of that. He has the ability to go tape to tape. Sid’s goal (on March 7) was a perfect example. He passes the puck really well. He sees the ice, he has a high panic threshold. He doesn’t just throw pucks away. But he creates a lot of offense off of his defense and a lot of it is just in the subtleties of his game.

“Sometimes, those things are difficult to quantify. You don’t necessarily see them on the scoresheet, but they certainly add up to helping us generate offense and winning games.”

Beyond any kind of tangible metrics, Dumoulin’s mere presence appears to be immeasurable to his teammates.

“The energy that he brings, he’s very upbeat,” Marino said. “He kind of calms everyone down a little bit when some guys are gripping their sticks too tight. It’s awesome to have him back.”

For Dumoulin, he is just grateful to be back on the ice after a rocky 16 months.

“There’s been some ups and some downs,” Dumoulin said. “Especially with my (injury in 2019), how severe it was. It’s never fun when you get that news. But for me, my outlook on life and my outlook for anything is positivity. I try to stay as positive as I can and try to look at the bright side of things.

“I was able to rehab from that. I felt really good when I was coming back. Then, obviously, I only got to play five games, and the pandemic happened. Then we were all kind of dealing with a lot of new things in hockey life and our personal lives. It was all new. I’ve used this time to try to get better, try to get stronger.”

Everyone seems to like the sound of that.

“He’s a real big presence in our locker room,” forward Bryan Rust said. “He’s such a key guy for us on the back end. Plays some real big minutes. Does a lot of those unsung hero-type things. He’s just an awesome guy.

“It’s definitely good to have our locker room DJ back for sure.”

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