Slumping Penguins Find a Way (to Lose)

One of the saddest things about watching a proud former champion fade to black is seeing them stumble about while finding new and inventive ways to lose. Or in the case of our Penguins, reverting to tried-and-true ways to lose.

Puck mismanagement? Blown leads? Allowing last-minute goals?

Check, check and check.

It’s a shame, because the Pens actually did enough good things in Calgary last night to garner two points. Instead, they departed Cowtown on the short end of a 4-3 shootout defeat with that old, familiar empty feeling in their guts.

Following our trademark rocky start, we actually took it to the upstart Flames, piling up an impressive 38-25 edge in shots on goal through 65 minutes.

After falling behind early, we tied the game on a second period power-play marker by Bryan Rust, thanks in no small part to some nice board work by Evgeni Malkin and a slick feed from Sidney Crosby. We even grabbed a 2-1 lead early in the third on a sharp-angle goal by Rickard Rakell, his team-best fourth of the season.

Cue the tried-and-true, as Flames d-man MacKenzie Weegar struck five minutes later to knot the score.

Again, we grabbed the lead on a greasy net-front goal by Noel Acciari, who enjoyed a fine game by the way.

We entered the final two minutes of regulation with a 3-2 lead and those precious two points all but tucked away in our saddlebag. Then Flames coach Ryan Huska pulled kid goalie Dustin Wolf and it all came crashing down. Stuck in an ice-a-thon, we couldn’t get tired players off the ice. With 43 ticks left, Nazem Kadri beat Alex Nedeljkovic to force overtime.

Following a scoreless OT, we went 1-up in the shootout on a tally by Rakell. Typical of our Pens these days, we just couldn’t seal the deal. The Flames prevailed in the shootout and that valuable second point went pfft.

To quote a time-honored truism, good teams find a way to win. Bad teams find a way to lose.

We’ve been finding ways to lose for a while.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

Rookie defenseman Jack St. Ivany re-entered the lineup last night in place of Ryan Shea. Although his metrics weren’t especially good, I thought he was solid and forceful. There’s something about his size (6’4” 205) and the way he comports himself on the ice that engenders confidence.

To my eye, he’s what a defenseman is supposed to look like, if that makes any sense.

On the flip side, maybe it’s his lack of size. But Matt Grzelcyk has the opposite effect. In fairness to the newcomer, he was paired with Erik Karlsson for the first time and the duo actually had decent underlying numbers, as did the newly formed Marcus Pettersson–Kris Letang tandem.

Michael Bunting re-entered the lineup and played a smidge under 13 minutes. He’s not seeing much power-play duty, which in the past has been his bread-and-butter. Such is the way of things under coach Mike Sullivan.

Same goes for Jesse Puljujärvi, whose ice time dipped to a season-low 9:53 despite being one of our more effective (and sizeable) forwards to date.

If you’re not a Sully fave…

A final thought. The Flames are the blend of veterans and promising kids we aspire to be but aren’t (yet).

Kyle Dubas would do well to follow their lead.