Our season is hanging in the balance.
That was my thought last night as I watched our Penguins gamely attempt to kill off a late hooking penalty to Chad Ruhwedel.
On cue, Ryan Poehling broke his stick and Bryan Rust was incapacitated after blocking a shot. With visiting Ottawa essentially working on a 5-on-2, Brady Tkachuk zipped a sharp-angle pass to Drake Batherson on the doorstep. Batherson slipped the rubber past and through Brian Dumoulin and Tristan Jarry for the game winner.
The goal seemed to typify the very nature of what’s become a decidedly star-crossed season. Indeed, whatever can go wrong has gone wrong for our boys. It’s as if the hockey gods have turned a collective thumbs down on our fate and proclaimed, “Sorry guys, this isn’t your season.”
How else do you explain losing four of your regular defensemen to injury, not to mention a key trade deadline acquisition, just as you enter the stretch run?
Back to Ruhwedel’s unfortunate penalty with 3:05 left in the third period. The black-and-gold defender blew a tire as the Sens began a rush out of their zone. Scrambling to catch up, Chad had little choice but to impede Ridly Greig with his stick. Certainly not a lazy penalty. Rather one born out of desperation and need.
A shame, because only minutes earlier the Pens had finally solved the riddle posed by Dylan Ferguson, the Sens’ obscure 24-year-old rookie netminder. Taking full advantage of an open lane, Pierre-Olivier Joseph escorted the puck deep into the Sens’ end before dishing to Evgeni Malkin behind the net. Geno quickly fed Rickard Rakell between the circles. RikRak somehow found an opening and threaded the puck past Ferguson glove side to knot the score at 1-1.
Exactly what Ruhwedel was doing encroaching so far up the ice with the game on the line is open to debate. Tribune Review columnist Mark Madden has repeatedly criticized our defense for pinching at every conceivable opportunity, often it seems indiscriminately and without regard to the game situation. A practice encouraged if not outright mandated by our coaching staff. Madden’s often cited Ruhwedel as an example when describing this high-reward, higher-risk practice.
As the old saying goes, you live by the sword, you die by it, too.
Last night? We died by it.
Puckpourri
You certainly can’t fault our effort. Squeezing out every ounce of sweat equity, our guys literally poured over the Sens in waves while running up mind-blowing advantages in shot attempts (91-52), shots on goal (49-21), scoring chances (51-17) and high-danger chances (17-9). While we’re at it, giveaways, too (19-6).
Ferguson was the difference. Appearing in only his second NHL game (his first since 2017-18) he was superb, stoning the Pens to the tune of 48 saves to garner top-star honors. To put his super-human effort in proper perspective, the former seventh-round pick of the Stars has only appeared in 56 games his entire pro career spanning six seasons!
While not nearly as active, Jarry made some big saves as well, especially early when the Pens yielded their usual passel of odd-man breaks. More on that in a bit.
Thomas Chabot scored the Sens’ first goal at 16:46 of the first period off a picturesque setup by Claude Giroux. With Chabot and recent high-profile acquisition Jakob Chychrun, the Sens boast quite a 1-2 punch on defense.
Although held together with scotch tape, bubble gum and baling wire, our patchwork defense acquitted itself reasonably well. Shaky of late, Joseph rose to the occasion and had a strong game skating next to Kris Letang. The duo was a combined plus-two with eight shots on goal. Taylor Fedun, our version of Ferguson, skated in his first NHL game since the 2020 playoffs with Dallas. He finished a minus-one with two shots on goal and a blocked shot in 10:34 of ice time.
Coach Mike Sullivan shuffled his forward lines. He sat Alex Nylander in favor of Danton Heinen, who joined Mikael Granlund and Poehling on the third line. Drew O’Connor dropped to the fourth line alongside Josh Archibald and Jeff Carter. Speaking of, I thought Carter played his best game and displayed more hop than at any time in recent memory. Of course, he saw only 6:30 of ice time.
SULLY PLEASE TAKE NOTE ALERT
For a brief sequence, Granlund was on the ice with Malkin and they displayed an almost instant chemistry. Perhaps the newcomer merits a longer look beside Geno. Just a reminder…Granlund skated on a line with Malkin sidekick Jason Zucker the season Zucks tallied 31 goals for the Wild. For the record, Granlund’s an excellent passer.
Name Change?
Football has the 49ers. Basketball, the 76ers and hockey, the Ottawa 67s. Perhaps the Pens should change their name to the 2-on-1-ers.
On Tap
The Pens (34-26-10, 78 points) face a murderous back-to-back of Colorado (Wednesday night) and Dallas the following night. Lotsa luck.
With our fourth straight loss, we’ve slipped out of a playoff spot. We trail the Panthers by a point and the Islanders by two.
Rick
I also meant to comment on Granlund playing alongside Malkin. He is an excellent
playmaker but he doesn’t fair well in the corners and physical play. I think Geno
relies on Zucker ana Rust to do a lot of the dirty work. “Just my 2 cents”
Hey Mike,
I guess I’m thinking he might be able to set the table for Malkin and Zucker. Then maybe drop Rust to the third line with O’Connor and Poehling to form a north-south crash line.
Rick
Rick & The Other Rick
The Other Rick – I wouldn’t put to much stock in the low number of shots by the Senators
last night – while having a couple of could one’s I mentioned to my buddy that Ottawa
appeared to be playing conservative and trying to protect the rookie goaltender. That
probably explains 20 of our 49 shots coming from the low danger area and the Senators
only putting up 21 shots of their own.
Jeff Carter minutes have been reduced over the last 4 games and the Pen’s are 0 & 4
He played 8:28 vs Montreal, 8:21 vs NYR, 9:37 vs NYR & 6:30 vs Ott. (4) straight losses.
But here are his minutes in the (3) games prior – 13:32 vs NYR, 14:36 vs Philly and 13:58 vs NYI.
We beat NYR & Philly and lost in OT vs the Islanders in a game they had won. Also, our defense
was very good in those games – NYR 3 – 2 and it took a late goal by Krieder to send it to OT.
Philly 5 – 1 and had the Islanders held to just one goal with 5min to play. Just some food for
thought. Also, again I’m not beating the drums for Carter but I do struggle with his replacements.
Hope everyon is well.
Hey Mike,
The point of the near 20 LDSA is only to point out that Ferguson had one of the easiest 48 Save victories on record. Our Pens do not have the intestinal fortitude to go to the paint and make an opposing Goalie and his D-men work for a living. Just clog the passing lanes and the perimeter passing Penguins plop.
The point of the 10 LDSA against JArry is to highlight that he too had an easy night and still managed to cede 2 GA.
The interesting thing about these last 4 games that Carter has played he has had a TOI avg. of 6:35 while having the 2nd highest TGA/60 5-on-5 (13:66). The Teams SH% is 0.00% with him on the ice these last 4 games and their Sv% is 0.600. Only 8 of 42 shifts started in the d-zone, yet 13 of 22 FO that he was on the ice for had to take place in the D-Zone, while his FOW% is 76.19. He is winning the faceoffs but unable to clear the puck.
Away from Carter and Sullivan Kapanen has 4 G in 10 GP. I don’t like ratting Carter out, he did some good things with the Pens and had a great career, but to paraphrase a certain baseball movie, he is killing us Smalls.
Before this team can start winning consistently again, they have to leave Egypt, they have to get out of Denial. They have to take a hard look, an objective, non sentimental look into the mirror and oblate the then obvious offenders (Burke, Hextall, Sullivan, Carter, Dumoulin, and Jarry) Until one acknowledges that a part or person is failing, they will not look for a replacement.
The Other Rick
I think Kapanan scoring is more an indicator of Sullivan’s system than Carter’s poor play.
It seems everyone thats left here has had an increase in scoring production.
Kapanan, Bjugstad, Brassard, Gaudreau, McCan, Sprong, Tanev, Oleksiak, Grant & Matheson.
Grant has been hurt this year but had 15g & 14a for the Pen’s he had 2g & 3a in (25) gms and
this is while playing on a garbage team. Matheson was also hurt but in (37) gms he has
8g & 16a – for the Pen’s he had 11g & 20a in (74) gms. All of these players have contributed
more offensively than they did with the Pen”s and I think what’s important here is there all bottom
six forwards. Personally I don’t think Sullivan cares if they score he’s all about possession numbers
and that’s why he loved Simon & Aston Reese. As always I look forward to your feedback.
Hey Mike,
I agree, Sullivan’s idiotic strategy of trying to drive offense through the Defensemen while asking Forwards to play defense is crushing bottom 6 players and draining off any real hope of out scoring teams like Edmonton in a run and gun game. Furthermore his insistence on playing top 6 forwards in bottom 6 roles when they can’t crack the our top 6 only serves to put those poor unfortunates in a position to fail.
Therefore, I would agree, most of the players you named were victims of Sullivan’s one trick pony strategy. Sullivan is incapable of Coaching the team he actually has, instead he always tries to Coach the team he wishes he had. I despise his mantra of this player or that is like a Swiss army knife. There are a couple of players out there that can play all 3 F positions and slide up and down the lineup from top 6 to bottom 6 but no one will ever be able to assemble a full team of those type of players, nor will they be able to win cups with a team comprised of a bunch Jacks of all trades but masters of none.
I would love to get back several of those players. The only ones I would not want back would be Brassard, Bjugstad, and Sprong (at least not until he grows up). Tanev would look awful good on our 3rd line right now as would Oleksiak bumping out one of those Ruth Buzzi’s masquerading as LHD we have now; and the topper, Matheson. I don’t think we can blame Sully for the Matheson fiasco, but he was the best LHD last season and he and Letang are the only 2 – D-men that have the ability to play the game Sully wants of his D – driving the O. The last think I would want to see is any of the D pinching or carrying the puck.
However, Carter, he is too old. He may still be able to get himself up to push himself in a game here and there like last night, but night after night, no. With older Centers, Crosby and Malkin and limited Cap and roster space, our Pens can’t afford to have a 38 year old Center who needs serious load management to approach effectiveness. I seriously doubt Carter would have been able to play as well as he did last night had he basically had 4 games off, (~ 6:30 avg TOI).
Furthermore, on D, Letang won’t stay effective if Sully keeps giving him 29 minutes TOI a night.
Once again, Sully’s refusal to give kids TOI, particularly against the Az s and CBJ s of the league, our stars will be exhausted, if not hurt come playoff time – if we make it – and our prospects will not be prepared to step in. Horrible, horrible Coaching!!!!
Hey Rick,
“How else do you explain losing four of your regular defensemen to injury, not to mention a key trade deadline acquisition, just as you enter the stretch run?”
Sorry, the explanation isn’t random chance but p!55 poor GMing and Coaching. The laws of probability would show that those many older veterans would not go the season without missing lots of time.
Pettersson is the only D-man in that group still on the uphill side of the slope but even he was due for an injury he hasn’t had one. There have been many people saying that the team was playing with fire with all of these aging veterans all season, but they were shouted down every time.
As for the riddle of Dylan Ferguson, he certainly did play well but he didn’t work as hard as a 49-shot game would suggest. Almost 20 of the shots he faced were of the low danger variety. You can’t score without shooting but not all shots have the same chance of going in. Ferguson’s stats were definitely padded with a lot of low scoring chances (borne out of desperation?)
Speaking of desperation, 19 Gv certainly would seem to indicate players trying to do more than what they needed to do and that was the number our pens committed.
Back to SOG, sorry Rick, but Jarry is still not impressing me any, 10 of the 21 shot he faced were of the Low danger category as well.
Also, the friends of Jeff Carter please take note, Carter only played 6:30 yesterday and the Pens erupted for 49 shots for and limited Ottawa to 21. Sitting Carter would appear to be addition by subtraction.