Penguins Overcome Dopey Play and Ducks

I thought my head was gonna explode.

I really did.

As I watched the waning seconds of a 4-on-4, soon to be an Anaheim power play, tick off the clock, I looked on in utter disbelief as our guys…apparently oblivious to the situation…pressed the attack.

“Oh, no,” I thought. “You gotta get back.”

It was already too late. As if scripted, we turned the puck over just as Kevin Shattenkirk exited the box. Three-on-two rush. BANG, the puck’s in our net. And pffft…just like that…a hard-earned one-goal lead evaporates into thin air.

So much for any type of situational awareness. I mean, if a schlub like me can see it, why (oh why) can’t a team of paid professionals?

Maddening.

But wait…it gets worse. Minutes later Jason Zucker failed to get the puck out of our zone, igniting a chain reaction comedy of errors that would’ve made the Keystone Kops proud and a pee-wee team blush.

Pierre-Olivier Joseph sized up the proceedings and fell down. His partner Chad Ruhwedel went down on purpose, in the process taking himself out of the play. Trevor Zegras almost couldn’t help but score to hand the Ducks a 3-2 lead with less than five minutes to play in regulation.

Excuse my French, but WTF!?!?!

Okay, the game somehow had a happy ending. With 24.8 seconds left and Casey DeSmith parked on the pine, Jake Guentzel took a sharp pass from Rickard Rakell to the right of the Ducks’ net and, without missing a beat, relayed a beautiful backhand feed to Bryan Rust below the left circle. Rusty dropped to a knee and beat native son John Gibson stick side to send the game to overtime.

“We’d better get two points out of this,” I grumbled to no one in particular.

Then overtime opened and we did our damndest to give that extra point away. As I watched in abject horror, an early thrust by Sidney Crosby and Guentzel with Marcus Pettersson in tow just kind of dissolved, leading to a 2-on-oh (dear Lord) for the Ducks. I’m not sure what happened next…divine intervention perhaps…but Zegras got cute and tried to feed Cam Fowler.

Somehow the puck got lost in transit and the wayward rubber found the stick of Guentzel, who slipped it to Crosby. The sidekicks set sail for the Ducks’ end on a 2-on-1. In one of our few intelligent decisions of the night, Sid fed Jake early, basically encasing the lone defender, Ryan Strome, in bubble wrap.

Jake waited for an opening, then lasered the puck past Gibson’s blocker to cap the comeback and touch off a delirious victory celebration.

Yes, I’m happy we won. But SHEESH. Could we display some semblance of structure and sound decision making along the way?

And just for the record, that wasn’t the second coming of the 1970s Canadiens dynasty we beat. It was the 12-win, Pacific Division cellar-dwelling Ducks.

I shudder to think what would’ve transpired had we played a team with some chops.

Anyway…a win, is a win, is a win…I guess.

The Other Goals

Zucker scored on a wraparound at 4:16 of the first period to stake us to an early lead. Ex-Devil Adam Henrique made Mark Friedman pay for an indiscretion with a power-play tally at 17:51 to knot the score at 1-1.

Evgeni Malkin capped off a frenzied goal-mouth scramble at 8:46 of the second period, banging the biscuit home at the side of the net to give us that 2-1 lead I referenced. The one that got erased by John Klingberg’s power-play tally at 11:16 of the third.

Puckpourri

The Pens dominated statistically, piling up a significant edge in shot attempts (81-47), shots on goal (45-29), scoring chances (50-27) and high-danger chances (28-13), not to mention faceoffs (57 percent).

Rakell tallied three assists against his former club. Malkin, Zucker and first-star Guentzel each had a goal and a helper.

DeSmith made the save of the night in the waning seconds of the second period, robbing Mason McTavish of a sure goal on a one-timer from the right circle. Casey made 26 saves in all.

Another black-and-gold defenseman bit the dust, as Jan Rutta sat out with an upper-body injury. Coach Mike Sullivan categorized him as day-to-day. Fortunately, Pettersson returned following a two-game absence due to illness and logged a team-high 23:15 of ice time. And Kris Letang is set to rejoin the team.

Rookie forward Jonathan Gruden made his NHL debut and registered two hits in 7:02 of ice time.

I’m not sure what’s gotten into Brian Dumoulin of late, but suddenly he’s looking more like his old self. Being paired with mobile Ty Smith seems to be helping.

Congrats to Ron Hextall, who reached 100 victories faster than any GM in franchise history (170 games). Ray Shero (176 games) and Jim Rutherford (177 games) are next on the list.

On Tap

The Pens (22-15-6, 50 points) travel north of the border to take on Ottawa (19-21-3, 41 points) Wednesday night, then return to the ‘Burgh for a rematch on Friday night.