Tepid Penguins Boiled in Blueshirt Oil

During his post-game interview, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan described his team’s effort during last night’s 4-2 loss to the Rangers as “in-between.” Which is another way of saying we were lukewarm or even tepid.

Feisty winger Jason Zucker, one of the few Pens who didn’t fit that description, was far less charitable. “I thought we made it a pretty easy game.”

Ouch…but true. Especially during a somnambulant first period that saw our hosts outshoot us, 12-7, while attempting nearly twice as many shots (26-14).

While hardly anything good can come out of a largely uninspired loss to a divisional foe in March, I can report one positive. We lost the game but found our goalie.

Left largely to fend for himself for huge swaths of time, Tristan Jarry rose to the occasion. Moving more fluidly and freely than at any time in recent memory, he made a passel of big saves to keep us in the hunt, including first-period stops on Barclay Goodrow and Artemi Panarin that prevented the Rangers from breaking the game wide open.

Displaying none of the riveting intensity that marked our recent victory over the Rangers, the sleepwalking Pens ceded plenty of ice during the early stages and the New Yorkers took full advantage. Three minutes in Panarin sprung Mika Zibanejad loose on a breakaway with a brilliant bounce pass off the sideboards. The Blueshirts’ sniper beat Jarry glove side from point-blank range.

One-zip, bad guys.

The going got considerably rougher moments later when Jeff Petry checked Tyler Motte into the boards and caught a roundhouse elbow in the mush. Petry would exit, forcing the Pens to play without a full complement of defensemen for the second straight game.

While his teammates mostly sputtered, Jarry continued hold the fort with a series of electric second-period saves on Braden Schneider, Vincent Trocheck and Vladimir Tarasenko. Then we caught a break…literally.

With Bryan Rust forced to the bench after blocking a shot, Sullivan plugged the gap with Rickard Rakell. Quicker than you could say…SHAZAM…the silky Swede scored off a pretty behind-the-net feed from Sidney Crosby to knot the score at 1-all.

Of all our destructive tendencies, perhaps none is more damaging than our habit of giving up goals almost immediately after we score. And so it was. Having seized the momentum we handed it right back courtesy of a ghastly giveaway by Pierre-Olivier Joseph. POJ, who in my humble opinion played a horrible game, flubbed a simple d-to-d pass to Kris Letang, instead handing the puck right to a speeding Motte 10 feet from our net.

Jarry had no chance.

Yet despite the soul-crushing giveaway and a late penalty to Marcus Pettersson, our guys hung tough. Our pluck was rewarded midway through the final period following a determined cycle by the Crosby line. Rakell chipped the puck to Sid, who found Jake Guentzel alone in the high slot with a bullet of a pass from the half wall. Wasting no time, Jake pulled the trigger and beat Igor Shesterkin five hole.

Bang bang. Score tied at 2-apiece.

Again, we had the momentum. And again we gave it away. Less than three minutes later Chris Kreider overpowered Brian Dumoulin in the slot and buried the puck behind Jarry in one fluid motion.

The inevitable empty-netter, again by Kreider, followed minutes later to seal our fate.

Puckpourri

Following our wobbly first period, the game was evenly contested. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers held a slight edge in shots on goal (35-32), scoring chances (34-33) and high-danger chances (16-13). Shot attempts were dead-even at 62 apiece.

Guentzel reached the 30-goal plateau for the third time in his career. Not too shabby for a third-round pick. Ryan Poehling returned to the lineup after missing the last 15 games.

In the PO-has-BO department, I thought Joseph was weak, weak, weak. He repeatedly lost puck battles down low. Rather than making his “longness” work for him in close quarters, he gets all tangled up in himself. Some of that falls on coaching…or lack of.

Small wonder GM Ron Hextall acquired Dmitry Kulikov at the deadline.

Speaking of our defense, my esteemed colleague Other Rick has opined all season long that our blue-line corps is our weak underbelly. I’m beginning to agree. Pettersson aside, the left side in particular needs to be totally revamped.

Some genuine physicality would go a long way. With five goals against us on the season (and counting) Kreider joins Islanders power forwards Anders Lee (seven) and Brock Nelson (five) as players who routinely torture us.

How egregious was our recent loss to Montreal? Florida destroyed the Habs, 9-5, last night. By the way, with 75 points the Panthers are charging up our tail pipe.

I’ll finish on a positive. IMHO Crosby had a quietly brilliant game. His passing…especially in traffic…unmatched. With 83 points in 68 games, Sid’s had a quietly brilliant season, too. He’s averaged better than a point per game in each of his 18 NHL seasons. Trailing only Wayne Gretzky (19 seasons) in that regard.

Nuff said.

On Tap

The Pens (34-24-10, 78 points) have a chance for revenge against the Rangers (39-19-10, 88 points) on Saturday night.

We’re tied with the Isles for fourth place in the Metro and the top Eastern Conference wild-card slot, with two games in hand.