Penguins’ Rally Falls Short, Lose to Montreal, 5-4

The Penguins’ season of ineptitude continued to churn on unabated last night with a 5-4 loss to Montreal at the Bell Centre.

Our defense turned in another Keystone Kops-ish performance, Declan Carlile in particular. The newcomer was on the ice for four goals against and finished a minus-3 in a blunder-filled effort.

Making his first start in two weeks, rookie goalie Sergei Murashov was clearly fighting the puck and himself at times, the comedy of errors in front of him notwithstanding.

Murashov’s shakiness reached its nadir during two staccato bursts leading to four Canadiens goals. The initial rapid-fire, two-goal sequence occurred during a 24-second span of the first period, just 33 seconds after Erik Karlsson had staked us to an early 1-0 lead with a power-play goal.

The second pair came within 27 seconds of each other and early in the second period to put the Habs up 4-2.

As for the rest of the Pens? Most of ‘em kind of resembled a collection of…well…zombies on ice. Fitting enough, given the Halloween backdrop.

Indeed, we managed just 14 shots on goal through 40 minutes before finally rising from the grave in the third period.

The notable exception to the zombie theme was Sidney Crosby’s line. In a welcome departure from what’s become the norm, Sid’s unit was far and away our most effective, piling up an 18-5 edge in 5v5 shot attempts and a 9-3 advantage in 5v5 shots on goal. Sporting their gold jerseys, at times they resembled Mike Lange’s bees buzzin’ around a hive.

The trio also accounted for the rest of our goals. Tommy Novak scored on a backhander at 7:28 of the first period to knot the score at 2-apiece. Suddenly white-hot Rickard Rakell beat Habs goalie Jacob Fowler with a snap shot at 3:45 of the second frame, his fourth goal in five games. Sid capped off a vintage three-point effort with a net-front tally at 16:49 of the third to close the gap to 5-4.

Try as we might, we couldn’t pot the equalizer.

PUCKPOURRI

With a whopping 14 goals allowed and corresponding .784 save percentage over his past three starts, it’s fair to ask if the Pens should consider sending Murashov to the Baby Pens in an effort to restore his sagging confidence. Especially since it appears, based on performance, that Arturs Silovs may get the lion’s share of starts.

As for our options? Joel Blomqvist has prior NHL experience (15 games in ’24-25) and has filled a backup role, most recently last season behind Murashov. However, the one-time AHL all-star is off to an equally rocky start with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (3.41 GAA, .864 SV%). Taylor Gauthier has posted better numbers (2.53 GAA, .917 SV%) with the Baby Pens, but this is his first extended stretch above the ECHL.

In other words, there’s no guarantee they’ll outperform Murashov, especially behind our rickety defense.

Blake Lizotte engaged in our second fight of the season. Although game as a butcher’s block, the scrappy center was quickly plowed under by the much larger Owen Beck.

Kind of a metaphor for the game…and our season in general.

UP NEXT

The Pens (5-7-2) return home for a rematch with Vegas (9-5-1) on Tuesday night, then host the equally tough Bruins (10-4-1) on Thursday. Then it’s off to the west coast for contests against three lesser lights, the Kings, Ducks and Sharks.