The Penguins suffered an ugly, disjointed, bizarre, humbling (pick your descriptor) setback at the hands of the red-hot Sabres last night at PPG Paints Arena.
The weirdness escalated following a first period that saw each team tally a shorthanded goal, ours on a terrific individual effort by Bryan Rust at 14:48 of the frame to knot the score at 1-all.
A scant 38 seconds into a Twilight Zone-ish second period, Sabres captain and star defenseman Rasmus Dahlin attempted to forcibly move Evgeni Malkin away from his net with a couple of vigorous cross-checks to the back. Suddenly, Geno wheeled and chopped down, viscously, with his stick, catching his stunned adversary across the base of the neck before shedding his gloves in an attempt to engage Dahlin.
The unfortunate result? Geno was issued 17 minutes in penalties, including a five-minute slashing major, and got tossed from the proceedings.
The Sabres predictably scored on the ensuing power play to make it 2-1 in their favor, but even that had a funky twist as Josh Doan bumped into Arturs Šilovs.
A clear-cut case of goalie interference, right? Pens coach, Dan Muse thought so, too. He issued a challenge, overlooking the fact that Kris Letang had shoved Doan into his goalie.
Tweet…penalty to the Pens for delay of game, leaving us two-men short for 88 seconds.
Our penalty-killers rose to the task and gamely killed off all but 13 seconds of the 5-on-3. Then we appeared to catch a rare break when Ryan McLeod was whistled for slashing at 5:25.
Alas, our power play had scarcely swung into action when Sabres stud Alex Tuch deflected an Owen Power drive past Šilovs at 6:18.
Three-one, bad guys.
Minutes later, Power again made his mark, camping out in the left circle unattended for what seemed like a month-and-a-half before beating Šilovs to make it 4-1. (Where, oh where, was our coverage?)
The Geno-less Pens turned up the heat in the second half of the period in a valiant but vain attempt to make a game of it, but couldn’t dent Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
Mattias Samuelsson (son of ex-Pen Kjell) potted an empty-netter at 16:53 of the third to cap the carnage.
Puckpourri
Despite the lopsided score, the game was fairly even statistically, with the Pens even enjoying a slight edge (28-26) in shots on goal. Still, it might qualify as our most brutal loss of the season. Best to flush this one down the loo and move on, hopefully to greener pastures.
Rust’s shorty was truly a thing of beauty. After scooping up a loose puck in the neutral zone, Rusty turned on the jets, lowered a shoulder and bulled past Norris before slicing, cross-crease, and beating Luukkonen with ease.
On the flip side, McLeod picked Letang’s pocket on the Sabres’ initial shorty 12 minutes into the first period before racing in and beating Šilovs through the wickets.
Letang finished a minus-3, new partner Samuel Girard a minus-1. Yeah, I’m still peeved about the Girard-for-Kulak swap. IMHO, an overreach by Kyle Dubas and a classic case of trying to fix what wasn’t broke.
So little of good report for our Pens. I don’t believe I heard Rickard Rakell’s name mentioned once during the ESPN broadcast. I realize a lots being asked of him, but RikRak isn’t exactly rising to the challenge.
Just an eye-ball observation, but we don’t seem to be possessing or supporting the puck as well with Sidney Crosby on the shelf. No surprise there.
Connor Clifton flattened Jason Zucker near our net while killing off a third-period penalty, de-helmeting the plucky former Pen in the process. “Cliffy” isn’t all that big at 6’0” 196, but, man, is he tough. He was the only black-and-gold defenseman to escape without a minus.
FYI: still love “Zucks.” Absolutely covet Tuch. Games with our Pens aside, it’s hard not to root for the Sabres.
Gotta think Geno’s gonna be suspended. It’s just a matter of how many games.
The Pens (31-17-13, 75 points) maintain their grip on second in the Metro over the Islanders (75 points as well), but it’s a tenuous hold at best. The streaking CBJ are only three points back and closing. They’re a totally different team (13-2-1) under new coach Rick Bowness.
Suddenly, the playoffs don’t seem like a done deal.
Big weekend ahead, with Philly and Boston visiting the ‘Burgh.
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I don’t blame Geno one bit for what he did. Dahlin didn’t just cross-check him in the back, but the play started with Dahlin slashing Geno on the hand or wrist seconds earlier when Geno cut through the slot as Shea was passing the puck to, I believe, Chinakhov. Then the Sabres’ Captain cross-checked Malkin not just once but three times, nearly sending him headfirst into the crossbar. The league had better look at that whole play and hand out a suspension to Dahlin as well. The Sabres’ should have been given a 5 minute major as well for the dangerous cross-checks delivered to Geno and an additional slashing penalty higher in the slot.