The Penguins’ down bound train continued to roll unabated yesterday afternoon with a 4-0 loss to the Oilers at PPG Paints Arena. Our third loss in a row and sixth in our last seven.
It didn’t take long for the Oilers to get the jump on our guys…68 seconds to be exact. Kris Letang, who appears to be pressing of late, sent a risky diagonal pass right onto the stick of Connor McDavid at center point. Handed the keys to the kingdom, the Oilers’ superstar zipped down Main Street and beat Tristan Jarry blocker side.
Next up on the Pens’ cavalcade of blunders, rookie defenseman John Ludvig. After successfully moving Zach Hyman out of the crease, Ludvig inadvertently stepped in front of his goalie and blocked Jarry’s vision if not Mattias Ekholm’s long-range shot. Patric Hornqvist couldn’t have set a better screen.
Two-zip, Oilers before the game was nine minutes old.
Looking for moral victories, which are the only kind we get these days, Jarry and his teammates did hunker down and staunch the bleeding through a competitive second period. However, the blunder parade continued early in the frame when we were whistled for too many men while on a power play.
There were some pyrotechnics mid-period when Ludvig went after Warren Foegele after the big forward inadvertently clipped Erik Karlsson with a high stick. Ludvig landed a volley of brisk lefts and sent Foegele, a non-fighter, to the ice.
Bryan Rust stirred the pot, too, accidently (?) steaming into goalie Calvin Pickard and knocking him backward into his net. As temperatures proceeded to rise, Rusty and linemates Sidney Crosby and Michael Bunting scrummed with the Oilers at the horn.
In terms of a discernable pulse, that was about all she wrote for our guys. McDavid bested Ludvig, just back from serving a 10-minute misconduct, in a mid-period puck battle along the wall and fed a wide-open Darnell Nurse cruising through the back door. Nurse beat Jarry high stick side to make it 3-0 Oilers.
The rangy defenseman struck again at 15:58, four seconds after Crosby stepped from the sin bin. With Corey Perry planted like a redwood in the crease, Nurse beat Jarry with a bullet from the slot.
A tidy 4-0 win for the Oilers.
As for the Pens’ down bound train?
Next stop, a top-ten pick in the draft.
Puckpourri
According to Natural Stat Trick, the game was fairly even. The Oilers had a slight edge in shot attempts (74-72), shots on goal (42-41) and scoring chances (40-31). The Pens held sway in high-danger chances (18-16).
It was a tough afternoon for Ludvig, who contributed to two Oilers goals in just 7:49 of ice time. Love this kid’s toughness and willingness to scrap, but the jury’s still out on whether he’s a legit NHLer.
With six shots on goal, Rust was impactful in his return. He replaced Rickard Rakell on Crosby’s line. RikRak joined Lars Eller and Emil Bemström on the third unit. Jesse Puljujärvi sat out against his old team (head scratch).
Valtteri Puustinen and Reilly Smith also had six shots on goal.
All four lines registered positive xGF% at 5v5. Needless to say, there’s a huge discrepancy between expected goals and actual production. A lack of second-chance opportunities might have something to do with it.
Process Cup, here we come.
Play-by-play announcer Steve Mears tried to ruin Pickard’s shutout bid by mentioning the ‘s’ word on the radio broadcast, but even that time-honored attempt at jinxing failed.
Have to feel for our guys and especially Sid, Evgeni Malkin and Tanger. This has to be a miserable experience for them (and everyone else).
Will we ever call up Sam Poulin?
Great article by Dan Kingerski on Pittsburgh Hockey Now titled, “The Penguins Are Crumbling From Within.”
On Deck
There’s no rest for the downtrodden. The Pens (28-27-8, 64 points) travel to Ottawa to take on the Sens (25-33-4, 54 points) tomorrow night.
Dare I say the Sens are licking their chops.
This is usually where I mention how far behind we are in the playoff chase, but given the way we’re playing there’s no need. Not to be callous, but instead I’m going to track our record over the final 20 games. Yesterday, I more or less predicted we’d go 3-17.
So far we’re 0-1.
Sam Poulin will not be called up as long as Sully calls the shots. I find his aversion to young players wildly ironic considering he owes about 2 Stanley Cups to a bunch of unknown youngsters bolstering his superstars. Rebuilding teams rely heavily on unproven talent, and Sully only wants to ice Hall of Famers.
Hello Nick,
I hear ya’ about the kids and the irony. Quite a few of them played at least supporting roles in those Cup runs. Matt Murray, Jake Guentzel (in ’17), Conor Sheary, Tom Kuhnhackl and Olli Maatta (still in his very early 20’s) immediately come to mind. To a lesser degree, Scott Wilson and Josh Archibald.
I think Sullivan fell victim, in part, to the win-now mindset that’s permeated the organization since those two Cups. But there’s no question in my mind that he has a quick hook with young players, especially ones who could break either way depending on how they’re treated and developed.
The reasoning behind our perceived (apparent?) reluctance to call up Poulin seems to be two-fold, with the primary concern skating. I guess Sam’s not the fastest guy in the world and we know how much Sully loves speed (see Harkins, Jansen). There’s some question as to whether Sam skates well enough to be effective on wing in the bigs. And, two, his health. He seems a bit injury prone.
Still, if you’re ever going to find about about a kid, now’s the time to do it. #theycan’tbethisdumbcanthey?
Rick
This years Pens team has certainly had a lot of flaws. Depth is most definitely an issue. So the plan to bring in Erik Karlson and the rest by Dubas just didn’t work. That being said, the last little stretch of games where everything was on the line, the big 4 were very instrumental in the losses. I can give Crosby somewhat of a pass as he carried the team for quite a while. The last 6 games or so he has been bad. The other 3 have been bad for a little longer. The giveaways by them are absolutely unforgivable. So maybe they started to feel sorry for themselves before you did. But they certainly did nothing to help them turn the corner. Somehow the Caps and Islanders have clawed back into the race in this last stretch. No way that either of those teams is any better than the Penguins. Here’s hoping that some young blood can make next season a little more fun.