I’ll say this for our Penguins. At least we’re consistent. Yesterday before a Sunday matinee throng of 18,429 at PPG Paints Arena, our string of sloppy, mistake-riddled (and at times…languid) efforts continued unabated in a showdown with Carolina for first place in the Metro.
The result? A disappointing 4-3 loss to the Hurricanes.
Judging by our somnambulant start, it appeared someone forgot to set the team’s collective alarm clock. Indeed, with the notable exception of goalie Tristan Jarry, in what’s become our typical turn-it-off, turn-it-on fashion our guys didn’t appear to wake up until about half through the game. By that time the visitors tested Jarry on a plethora of odd-man breaks while piling up a 25-12 edge in shots on goal and a 2-0 lead on tallies by Jesperi Kotkaniemi and old friend Jordan Staal. The latter, just nine seconds into the second period.
It looked like yet another in a disturbing string of snoozer (and loser) efforts by our guys. Then the Brian Boyle line got a little something going with just over five minutes remaining in the second period to deliver a wake-up call. On the ensuing sequence Kris Letang flew off the bench to pick off a ‘Canes clearing attempt before slipping a cross-zone pass to Evgeni Malkin. Tanger one-timed Geno’s return feed into traffic. The puck deflected off Jordan Martinook’s skate before popping off Antti Raanta’s pad and onto the stick of Bryan Rust, who knocked it in from the doorstep.
Finally engaged, the Pens knotted the score at 2-2 with two minutes left in the period. Jake Guentzel found Sidney Crosby with a pass on an otherwise deserted patch of ice at the ‘Canes blue line. Sid steamed in and blew a rare slap shot past Raanta from the left faceoff dot for his 15th goal of the campaign.
The crowd was buzzing. Could the Pens complete the comeback and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
Well…no. In a bad case of déjà vu, Mr. Nine Seconds reared his ugly head again.
No sooner did Sid win the faceoff to start the third period than Brian Dumoulin’s errant outlet pass was picked off in the neutral zone. The ‘Canes quickly transitioned, catching us flatfooted in the process. Nino Neiderreiter slipped a crisp diagonal pass to Jesper Fast and the ex-Ranger beat Jarry high glove side.
The Pens nearly knotted the score a short time later on the power play, but Sid’s missile from the left circle rang off the cross bar. With the Letang in the box on a questionable slashing call, Sebastien Aho struck from the slot to give the ‘Canes a 4-2 lead.
We closed the gap to one with 1:12 remaining when Evan Rodrigues (remember him?) torched Raanta with a one-timer from the left circle, courtesy of a pretty setup from Malkin. Unfortunately for our guys, that was all she wrote. Raanta stopped Sid from point-blank range as the time ticked off the clock.
I’d like to say we deserved a better fate, but I don’t like to lie.
Puckpourri
In the “statistics can be deceiving” department, the Pens once again dominated from a numbers standpoint. Following our sluggish start, we ran up a 34-30 edge in shots on goal and held an advantage in scoring chances (27-22) and high danger chances (14-12). We had nine giveaways to the ‘Canes two.
Rust paced the attack with a two-point effort (1+1). Malkin and Letang garnered two assists apiece.
Corsi-wise, each of the Pens’ lines were at 50 or better. E-Rod’s unit led the way (66.67) followed by Crosby’s (65.22). Nice to see Rodrigues snap his goal drought at 18 games. If we could only get Kasperi Kapanen off the schneid (no points in his past 11 games).
Jarry stood on his head, especially early, stoning Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen on breakaway attempts. His final numbers (26 saves on 30 shots, .867 save percentage) don’t reflect his performance. We could’ve easily lost this one 7-3.
Perhaps it’s time to file a missing person’s report on our long-lost structure…
Defenseman Chad Ruhwedel signed a two-year extension on Saturday with an AAV of $800,000. He’s been a solid performer this season, anchoring the third pairing and excelling on the penalty kill while establishing career highs in games played, hits and blocked shots.
The Pens (31-13-8, 70 points) need to find their game in a hurry. Following a Thursday night matchup with the Devils we face the Rangers on Saturday afternoon. Both games are at the Paint Can. Then we embark on a three-game road trip against Columbus, Tampa Bay and Carolina before returning home to face Florida.
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Rick and the other Rick,
As Mrs. Lightning and I watched the Pens / Canes game, She commented on three issues
1) LeTang’s defensive game has collapsed. Her exact words were “ he’s made more turnovers than Oakmont Bakery this past month”
DuMo’s not far behind and is it due to pairing with the schizophrenic play of LeTang?
2) Malkin’s stats seem ok but his style of play seems “ off” with whomever his line mates are. She bets our record is better with Malkin not playing.
3) Forget Boyle dropping the gloves while he’s starting for Blueger. Sully has clearly warned him that there’s no one behind him if he gets injured.
The other Ricks comment on the veterans being burned out and no youngsters with enough nhl ice time is on the money.
It feels like a big game of wack-a-mole. For a while , our goalie play is suspect , then that gets better and secondary scoring falls off a cliff, now add our defensive woes and it’s like trying to push a string.
Thank Goodness Sid is playing at a high level or we’d be hearing boos at the arena
Mrs. Lightning seems to have a keen eye regarding things Penguins. Her observations seem spot on ... :)
Regarding Malkin-Letang. At the risk of further antagonizing the bear (Other Rick), I read an observation on another blog that suggested Letang's game began to unravel almost precisely with Geno's return. At least by the eye test, I agree. For maybe the first time in his career Tanger was playing within himself and not trying to force things. But for the past month or so he's been Bad 'Ol Tanger...at least in terms of sloppy, high-risk play and poor decision-making.
You can hardly blame that on Malkin. Yet is there something in his game that encourages risky play in others? Dunno.
Back to Dumoulin-Letang. It seems they're trying to fly the defensive zone without first making sure the puck's secure. Which is leading to turnovers and them getting caught flat-footed. It doesn't help that Dumo, at age 30, seems to have lost a step.
It's not just them. The second pairing seems to be getting caught, too. Perhaps a result of trying to push the offense a little too aggressively to help our flagging secondary scoring?
Anyway, keep sharing your...and Mrs. Lightning's...observations ... :)
Rick
Hey Lightning,
The biggest problem with Letang's and Dumo's horrible play is that they get the bulk of the TOI. So they are the ones putting Jarry behind the 8-ball most.
I may have a slight bias but I don't blame Malkin. Everytime Malkin starts showing chemistry with a player, Mr tinker changes Geno's line mates. Zohorna-Malkin-Carter was humming for about 6 or 7 minutes one game, but Sullivan never put them back together.
Interesting thoughts on Boyle. Sullivan does hate the kids. He can't wait to banish them to WBS so under other circumstances I may wonder but right now, I can see that.
The Other Rick,
I don't blame Malkin, in fact I think his hustle is notably higher since he came back and I think he's been a notable positive on the PP.
It is possible, however, that his return to the lineup had impact on the play of the players around him. Certainly McGinn and Rodriguez's point totals have dropped and Heinen is not exactly killing it either. It all could be coincidental. Maybe there's a need for sustained pairings as you've mentioned.
Teddy Blueger's exit certainly lowered the teams performance incrementally. He was great at PK's and creating short handed goal opportunities, he was the go-to line for Sullivan when they needed ultimate defense (now it appears to me to be Sid's line) and when he was in there, he could take offensive chances that Boyle just can't. Teddy is the type of player where sometimes he tried to take it to the house rather than just dump it into the corner for a line change. And if it didn't work out, he was capable enough to play with Sid's line until he could get to the bench.
I really think we've gotten a lot from Boyle and I think the fourth line is playing pretty well , but he's not Teddy Blueger and the fourth line isn't what it was when Teddy was leading the line.
Hey Lightning,
I hear you about E-Rod especially. I think Rick B would agree with me in so far as E-Rod has been mismanaged lately. Personally I have written several times that E-Rod needs to play Top 6 and at Center, RIck B may offer up playing his off wing as well. But as soon as Malkin and Rust got back, E-Rod was banished to bottom 6 Winger, not even his off Wing and his game went south.
I would have to check, but it seems to me that McGinn's TOI has been cut into with both Malkin and Rust back in the line-up, perhaps that has been his problem.
Heinen's game is off too, but not as bad as the others.
I don't know if you go back far enough to remember the Jagr days, but when ever Jagr would be out of the lineup other players, particularly Jan Hrdina would shine but as soon as Jagr was back, it would look like the rest of the team would wait for him to put them on his back and carry them or try and force the puck to him, even when he was covered. I can even remember a game (I think it was a playoff game) where Hrdina had the chance to shoot the puck from between the circles (and he had a good wrist shot) but he passed it up to pass it to Jagr who was covered along the boards.
I never thought about it until you mentioned it and at least right now I don't see that, but I may start to watch for some hint of that mentality in this team.
The PK certainly hurting without Blueger and he was starting to show some scoring touch and as you say, Boyle is no Blueger. He has done a yeoman's job but he just isn't the same.
Hey Other Rick,
In defense of our Pens, I have trouble getting up for and writing good game summaries on a consistent basis. There are times I just don't feel like it (like this morning).
I can only imagine the challenge of getting yourself dialed in emotionally, spiritually and physically throughout the course of an 82-game schedule. It's impossible not to experience at least some ups and downs.
Having said that, with few exceptions our structure's been in the tank for about 5 or 6 weeks now. We've been able to mask it to an extent by Jarry's strong play and the productivity of our power play and big guns. But eventually we've got to figure this thing out and get back to playing sound hockey.
I've written this before, but I think Blueger's the key. Since he went down we've gone a deceptive 6-3-3. Problem is, he isn't due back for another month. During the interim, we're going to be facing a lot of tough matchups. Hope we find a way to at least tread water.
Rick
Sorry Rick,
This is far worse than an occasional bump in the road. The defensive breakdowns have been occurring all season. During the winning streak the teams the Penguins played didn't have the quality of forwards to capitalize on the number of odd-man breaks they were getting; playoff bound teams do. Jarry didn't just keep this team in the game yesterday, he has been doing it all season.
You may not want to acknowledge the Penguins weaknesses but understand point 2 below Rick, Carolina, a Playoff contender that just beat us, didn't consider us a enough of a threat to deploy their top Goalie. They sent out their back-up.
And if that wasn't bad enough, consider this as well Rick, Carolina played down a Defenseman for nearly the Whole game with Smith taking a shot to the head, early on, and add to that the loss of their rookie phenom Jarvis. Carolina played with only 16 skaters while we deployed all 18.
As fans, it seems we never acknowledge that their is another team on the ice and that they face adversities too. The only time we want to see the other team is when we whine about them "cheating" us.
This Penguins team has accomplished nothing yet and they failed their first litmus test. Their wins were coming against the bottom feeders. All they did was what they were supposed to do.
The thing that scares me is that Smellivan may have exhausted the stars of this team playing the bottom feeders, rather than using some of those games to give kids some NHL experience so that as you recently wrote, they are "Burned Out"!! The perfect storm come playoffs, burned out veterans and kids with none to extremely limited NHL experience.
Hey Rick,
1) Let me start by saying this game could have been very ugly, if not for Jarry.
2) Sorry Penguins' fans but Carolina totally disrespected us. How? you ask. Antti Raanta is their back-up goalie. That's right boys and girls, in a game to decide who was tops in the Division, they trotted out their back-up Goalie. They didn't consider us a worthy enough opponent to face their starter.
If this had been a playoff game and Jarry was injured, our Pens could have been completely embarrassed.
3) This was supposed to be a litmus test for our Pens and they failed, failed horribly.
Hey Coach,
100% !!! This team is winning against the bottom half of the league but when put to the test, there are several teams we do not stack up against. Period !
We need 3 new defense men to become a true cup contender and possibly 2 more big wingers to protect Sid and Geno.
This is just like watching reruns of MASH...you know how it will end Coach...We have seen this to many times before.
Cheers
Jim