Hagelin’s speed pays dividends

period coach Mike Sullivan labeled as good as any the team has played recently.

Here come the Penguins, all right, winners of 10 consecutive home games.

Money goalie Matt Murray is looking like the guy who hoisted the past two Staley Cups. The stars are soaring.

The hockey world is waiting to see what general manager Jim Rutherford adds at the trade deadline (and he will add).

Can you imagine Michael Grabner joining this group? They’d need a baton when switching lines.

Hagelin in high gear is quite the sight, and he has been flying for about a month and a half, or ever since he joined Evgeni Malkin’s line

He’s a big reason Malkin has 14 goals in his past 10 home games — including an empty netter Thursday on a feed from Sidney Crosby with Kings defenseman Drew Doughty playing goal almost as helplessly as Antti Niemi did here.

Hagelin plainly acknowledges the calendar has something to do with the surge, for himself and the team.

“I think you could just see, after Christmas, our eyes on the prize, and the prize at the moment is making it to the playoffs, and after that, we keep pushing,” he said.

“I think you can see guys are stepping up. It’s more fun to play at this time of year. It means a lot more.”

I was never on the trade-Hagelin bandwagon. Not after last season when he had six goals in 61 games. Not early this season when he couldn’t find the net with a high-powered telescope.

Hagelin earns that $4-million salary in other ways, like preventing the other team from scoring.

Yet when the stakes grow, he seems to have a knack for finding his way to the scoresheet.

He is precisely the kind of player the Penguins lacked when they were flailing away late in the Dan Bylsma era.

Too many of those guys shriveled each spring. Hagelin blooms. His speed and savvy become that much more important in the crucible of playoff hockey, when players feel a different kind of pressure knowing one mistake could decide a series.

Speed makes people nervous.

Hagelin doesn’t let the scoring droughts drag him down.

“If I have chances, I don’t really worry about it,” he said. It’s when you have a few games where you’re not creating enough chances, you kind of have to hit the reset button. For me, it comes down to my skating. When I’m skating the way I can skate, I create way more chances.”

Is he really as fast as he was seven years ago?

“I don’t think I’ve lost a step,” he said, smiling.

“The league’s probably gotten a little faster since I got in, but I’m the same type of skater I was back then. When I feel I’m on my game and my legs are the way they should be, I feel I’m as fast as I’ve ever been. And this is a fun team to be a part of.

“We have a lot of speed, and when you have a lot of speed, you can use it to create a lot of chances not only for yourself but your teammates.

“We’re a team that starts to come around right now. I think we’re well-conditioned, we’re well-trained from the summer, and this is our time of year.”

Don’t think the rest of the league doesn’t know it.

Here come the Penguins.

Joe Starkey: jstarkey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @joestarkey1. Joe Starkey can be heard on the “Starkey and Mueller” show weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.