Blowout of Red Wings was one thing for Penguins, responding against Rangers would be greater

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Bryan Rust had a succinct assessment of his team’s turnaround from a 5-1 loss in New York against the Rangers on Friday night to an 11-2 drubbing of the Detroit Red Wings at home Sunday.

“Tonight was substantially more fun than the other night,” Rust assessed.

Indeed.

Thankfully, Rust had more.

“To play on our toes and not be on our heels the whole night, again, also very fun,” Rust said. “We’ve got to take what we did — a wellness game — and build off of it. Take the confidence from this game and keep moving forward. Because we’ve got a game (with the Rangers) on Tuesday.”

If you are looking for something — anything — to glean from the Penguins’ nine-goal win, it’s exactly that. The Penguins were quick to take a dog performance, flush it and spin right around to shove some frustration down the throat of a lesser team.

Emphasis on “lesser.” The Rangers and Pens are in a season-long, drag-out battle for second place in the Metropolitan Division. Entering Tuesday’s game, the Penguins have 90 points. The Rangers have 89. Division-leading Carolina has 95.

Meanwhile, the Red Wings have only 60 points and have won just twice in their past 10 games.

Regardless, head coach Mike Sullivan was appreciative of the Penguins’ bounceback effort, less than 48 hours removed from getting boat raced in Madison Square Garden.

Why not? In the playoffs, a well-played 3-2 loss may feel like 5-1. And you don’t need to respond in the following game with a nine-goal blowout. You just need to be better than the other team by one goal.

“I was fairly confident that we were going to have a spirited effort,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got a proud group. No one was thrilled with our last game. Knowing these guys the way I know them, I expected them to play on their toes and respond.”

That said, after Sunday’s romp, the Penguins players also seemed aware that the blowout of Detroit — “substantially more fun” as it may have been — didn’t take Friday’s rotten defeat out of the loss column.

Nor does it mean much in terms of how they need to get ready for the Rangers on Tuesday night.

“The last game in New York was really, really bad,” forward Teddy Blueger said Sunday night. “We needed the response. We had it (Sunday). The next game against New York is going to be a test for us, too, in how we respond against them. It’s going to be a good challenge. In a way, it can be good for us that we play them again so soon. We are fighting with them for a playoff spot. That’s a big game for us. (Sunday) was good. But it doesn’t mean anything if we can’t respond next game.”

However Tuesday night turns out, the Pens and Rangers will have one more chance to get a read on one another before their seemingly inevitable first-round matchup in the playoffs begins. That game is in New York on April 7.

In Tuesday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast, Penguins Radio Network host Brian Metzer joins us to talk about the Penguins-Rangers rematch. We get into how Rickard Rakell is fitting into the Pittsburgh lineup. We examine the standings in the Eastern Conference. And we discuss Metzer’s emergency pinch-hitting stint in the radio broadcast booth for an ailing Josh Getzoff on Sunday afternoon.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk Penguins-Rangers rematch