Penguins Collapse, Fall to Red Wings in OT

It seems Bob Errey has become quite the prophet of late. With about seven minutes remaining in regulation last night and our guys clinging to a 4-2 lead, the Penguins play-by-play man said something to the effect of “wishing the time on the clock would speed up.”

I’m sure because he sensed a game we should’ve had in our hip pocket was slipping through our collective grasp.

Which is exactly what happened.

As the Pens incredibly blew an early four-goal lead and lost in overtime to Detroit, I changed the title of my post three times. I started with “That’s More Like It” which was downgraded to “WHEW” in hopes we’d eke out a win to the mournful version above.

A shame, because the game began with so many positives. Drew O’Connor scored his first goal of the season just 2:36 in, sweeping a nifty feed from Kasperi Kapanen past Wings netminder Ville Husso from the right circle. Then big Jeff Carter struck on the power play at 10:15, again courtesy of a setup from Kapanen.

Next it was Jason Zucker’s turn. The fiery forward walked out of the corner and around defender Filip Hronek before banking one in off the far post from point-blank range. With 32 seconds to go in the period “Zucks” authored a gritty encore, jabbing the puck in from a net-front scramble.

Viola…we’re up 4-0 after 20 minutes.

In desperation, Wings coach Derek Lalonde pulled the beleaguered Husso in favor of 31-year-old journeyman Magnus Hellberg, who on this night would resemble the immortal Georges Vezina. Early in the period the big goalie stopped Sidney Crosby on a breakaway. We’re left to wonder what might have been had Sid scored. Instead of a glorious victory, the game degraded into a Nightmare on Center Avenue for the black and gold.

Wings captain Dylan Larkin struck on the power play at 7:17 of the period to make it 4-1. From there the visitors completely took over, outshooting the Pens by a 30-17 margin over the final 40 minutes of regulation.

While the Pens sagged, the Wings attacked in waves, pounding our fragile defense like high tide at the sea shore. Joe Veleno scored from the slot with 5:28 left in the period to pare our lead to 4-2.

We managed to stave off the Wings for the first half of the third period, but you could sense our boys were on their last legs. Jonatan Berggren scored with five minutes to go on an “assist” from Crosby, who conveniently poked the puck away from Elmer Soderblom and right to the Wings’ forward parked below the right circle.

Then we shot ourselves in the foot with a too-many-men penalty. Old friend (?) David Perron drove a shiv through our collective hearts with a power-play goal.

In overtime, the Wings took full-advantage of sloppy play by the Pens to cash in on a 2-on-1, with defenseman Jake Walman doing the honors.

Puckpourri

The Wings dominated the stats, holding an edge in shot attempts (74-59), shots on goal (46-31), scoring chances (45-33) and high-danger chances (19-17).

Casey DeSmith stopped 41 of 46 shots.

The Crosby line was a collective minus-8, with Sid and Jake Guentzel weighing in at minus-3 apiece.

Mark Friedman played his first game of the year for the black and gold. The feisty defender registered a team best plus-2 and four hits in 13:40 of ice time. His partner Pierre-Olivier Joseph finished a plus-1. The rest of the defense was a collective minus-4.

Kasperi Kapanen had two assists in only 7:20 of ice time. Kappy’s quietly registered 10 points (4+6) in his past dozen games. Zucker’s goals, his seventh and eight of the campaign, snapped a seven-game goalless skein.

Prior to the contest, the Pens recalled forward Drake Caggiula and defenseman Ty Smith from the Baby Pens. In corresponding moves, we placed Josh Archibald and Ryan Poehling on IR, the former retroactive to Dec. 18 and the latter Dec. 20.

Chad Ruhwedel sat out with an upper-body injury, opening the door for Friedman’s debut.

On Tap

Despite the horrific collapse, the Pens (19-10-6, 44 points) moved into a tie for third place in the Metro with Washington.

The load doesn’t get any lighter. We host the Devils Friday night before facing the Bruins at Fenway Park on January 2 in the Winter Classic.

A bad time to have regained our early-season form. I’m talking the 0-6-1 stretch.