Leaky Penguins Fall to Montreal

Exasperated former coach Bob Berry once labelled his Penguins team “circus performers.” Up one game and down the next.

I can’t think of a more apt description for our present black-and-gold squad. Just like a circus, we provide plenty of entertainment value for your buck. But to borrow from that noted movie sage, Forrest Gump, we’re like a box of chocolates, too. You never know which team you’re going to get. The one that beat the Rangers in thoroughly impressive fashion on Sunday. Or the one that lost, 6-4, to the lowly Canadiens last night at PPG Paints Arena in a totally confounding manner. A contest so bizarre and macabre, I fully expected Rod Serling to break in at some point of the telecast and announce, “You’ve just entered the Twilight Zone.”

How bizarre, you ask? According to Natural Stat Trick, our guys piled up obscene advantages in shot attempts (84-44), shots on goal (43-22), scoring chances (54-18) and high-danger chances (25-7).

Yet we lost.

We got off to such a promising start. Jake Guentzel slammed the puck past Habs goalie Sam Montembeault from point-blank range just 21 seconds in to get us off and running. When Evgeni Malkin struck on a blistering drive from his office in the right circle at 4:49 on the power play, I thought we’d cruise to an easy peasy victory.

Perhaps the Pens thought so, too.

Then the wheels fell off our wagon. Aided and abetted to a large degree by an absolutely sieve-like performance by Tristan Jarry. Indeed, the Canadiens proceeded to bury four pucks behind our porous netminder (Porous Gump?) in less than 15 minutes.

Squinting at the TV screen, I envisioned the ghosts of past Montreal greats Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Jacques Lemaire and Yvan Cournoyer flying down the wing and firing tracer bullets past our beleaguered goalie, but it wasn’t. Rather, the goal getters were Mike Hoffman, Jesse Ylonen, Denis Gurianov and Joel Edmundson. The latter three having combined for all of a dozen goals on the campaign.

Mercifully, coach Mike Sullivan yanked Jarry like an aching tooth and replaced him with Casey DeSmith to begin the second period. Thus fortified, the Pens soon embarked on a comeback. Mid-period, Kris Letang beat Montembeault with a sizzler from the high slot, thanks in no small part to a screen in front by Mikael Granlund, who battled tooth-and-nail against the much larger David Savard for position.

Guentzel knotted the score with 1:55 to go in the period, deflecting home a Malkin laser from the top of the right circle.

I had high hopes for a Columbus-style comeback, when we rallied from four goals down. Then again…

Three minutes into the final period, Justin Barron hit fellow rookie Anthony Richard with a beautiful lead pass at the Pens’ blue line. Resembling the legendary Rocket of old, Richard beat DeSmith glove side with a perfectly placed snap shot. Nothing Casey could do on that one.

With nearly a full period to play, I thought for sure our boys would rally to garner at least a point. But Montembeault stiffened and his teammates skated on even terms with the Pens over the final 20 minutes.

We had our chances, including a Granlund wrister from the slot near the seven-minute mark and a near-miss by Marcus Pettersson off a spectacular net-front move that stubbed off the far post. But the puck simply wouldn’t cooperate.

Letang unintentionally drove the final nail into our coffin with 35 seconds to go when he hit Josh Anderson (wrong team) with a sharp-cross ice pass. The burly forward promptly split the empty net to seal our unfortunate fate.

Puckpourri

We played a good portion of the third period with only four defensemen. Jeff Petry didn’t play after the second period and Jan Rutta was felled by a knuckling shot off the inside of his left knee early in the final frame. In their absence, Letang (26 minutes), Brian Dumoulin (24:09) and Pettersson (23:14) logged copious amounts of ice time.

It goes without saying that with Dmitry Kulikov already on the shelf, we can ill-afford to lose Petry and Rutta.

Jarry posted a .429 save percentage, only slightly better than some guy named Empty Net. In fairness to Tristan, our defense all-but-evaporated on the Hoffman and Gurianov goals, but he simply isn’t stopping pucks. In nine appearances since the All-Star break, he’s posted a deplorable .863 save percentage. By comparison, DeSmith’s posted a .924 save percentage over the same span.

Although he didn’t register a point, I was very impressed with Granlund. He battled hard all over the ice and won all 12 of his faceoffs!

Likewise, I continue to be impressed with Alex Nylander’s all-around game. Sure would love to see him score a goal, just to cement his place in the lineup.

As I’d mentioned, just a bizarre game all around. Guentzel paced the attack with three points (2+1)…and finished a minus-2. Jeff Carter (minus-4), Dumoulin (minus-3) and Petry (minus-3) were also heavily in the red.

Although not for a lack of effort (four shots on goal), Jason Zucker’s four-game goal scoring streak was snapped.

Montreal swept the season series.

On Tap

The Pens (34-23-10, 78 points) travel to the Big Apple to take on the Rangers (38-19-10, 86 points) on Thursday and Saturday night.

Despite our bumbling, we continue to occupy fourth place in the Metro and the top Eastern Conference wild card spot.