Why Alex Nedeljkovic’s outburst was a welcome sight

The season might not be going anywhere but you still have to give a damn.

There has not been a lot to like about the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltending situation this season.

Or over the past few seasons for that matter.

They have not really given the team a chance on most nights, have allowed a goal on a first shot a comical number of times, and have simply not been good enough across the board. The numbers are bad. The eye test is bad. None of it is good enough. It has all been mostly rancid.

But on Thursday night veteran goalie Alex Nedeljkovic did something that a Penguins goalie really has not done this season.

He provided a spark.

Not necessarily with his play, but with the fact he still gives a damn and let his teammates know about it.

After allowing a third goal mid-way through the second period, giving what had been at the time a lifeless Penguins team a three-goal deficit to try and climb out of, head coach Mike Sullivan made the decision to pull Nedeljkovic in favor of rookie Joel Blomqvist.

It was the second time in four starts that Nedeljkovic had been pulled mid-game.

He did not take it well.

Before leaving the ice he obliterated his goalie stick over the crossbar, slammed the bench door shut and then proceeded to scream at somebody down the bench. His teammates? His coach? Given that Nedeljkovic did not talk after the game it is all just guesswork at this point, but it could have reasonably been both.

As much as Nedeljkovic has struggled this season, Thursday’s performance was really not on him. There was a lot of bad luck at play on those goals, with two of them bouncing in the net off of his own teammates. It was a tough luck night. If he was mad at Sullivan for pulling him and placing the blame on him, I get it. If he was made at his teammates for not helping him, I get that as well.

But sometimes a goalie change – even if it is not the goalie’s fault – can spark something in a team.

Sometimes somebody just telling you to get it together can serve as a wakeup call.

Whether all of that was the case on Thursday, it’s not hard to make the connection on where the game turned around for the Penguins.

Just minutes after Nedeljkovic’s outburst the Penguins scored two quick goals to get back into the game on their way to rallying for a 5-4 overtime win.

In terms of the standings, the game and the win mean next to nothing. Neither of these teams are going to the playoffs this season, both are rebuilding, and it is a game that will mostly get forgotten in what has amounted to a lost season.

Even with all of that being the case, it was still nice to see.

It was still nice to see the Penguins, as a team, not roll over. Because it would have been easy for them to do that given the circumstances. Like I wrote on Thursday morning before the game this is relatively new and uncharted territory for a lot of players on the Penguins. They are not used to playing meaningless hockey games, and given the way the past few games had gone it would have been easy for them to continue going through the motions.

But they didn’t.

They not only showed they were not going to just roll over, they also showed that they still care.

And that’s something.

Nedljkovic’s meltdown was the first real fire and emotion anybody had shown on this team since they returned from the 4 Nation’s Face-Off break. The way they started Thursday’s game after getting absolutely humiliated against the same team on Tuesday was concerning. Alarmingly so.

I have made this argument here before, but I don’t want to see an environment get created here where indifference starts to set in and where losing becomes accepted.

The front office can have its long-term vision and have its own internal expectations.

Fans can update Tankathon lottery odds and understand the big picture of why it is important to have top picks and try to get a franchise-changing player.

But players will never share any of that. They will never care about that. And they should not. Not only because professional athletes are simply wired differently than the people in the stands, not only because they did not get to this level by accepting losing, but because they are not thinking about one, two or three years from now. Why does Anthony Beauvillier or Alex Nedeljkovic care about a future draft pick? They will not be Penguins when that pick happens or the player makes the NHL.

Front offices might tank. Fans might cheer for a tank.

Players do not tank.

And I do think that matters.

The worst emotion that can happen in sports, whether it be from a fan, player or team perspective, is apathy. Losing should make you angry. Getting embarrassed, especially by your biggest rival, should make you mad and want to break something.

It’s why I think the Penguins’ rebuild will benefit from having players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Bryan Rust around for it. As long as those guys are still there, you have to imagine there is going to be a sense of caring, a sense of pride and a desire to keep winning. The winning might not happen for a bit, but the right mindset will be there.

You don’t want to become Buffalo. You don’t want to become the Pirates. To draw another cross-sport analogy that is close to Alex Nedeljkovic … you do not want to become the Cleveland Browns.

When losing becomes accepted and nobody cares, your franchise is cooked. For one night, a bad Penguins team did not let that happen. Hopefully it continues. They need more of that energy not just this season, but in what will probably some long seasons in the future.