Musings: Emotions Run High in Penguins’ Loss to Buffalo

Emotions ran high in Pittsburgh's 5-1 loss to Buffalo on Thursday at PPG Paints Arena.

“We’ve got to control what we can control,” Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse said. “There's going to be games where things don't go our way. I thought that was the case for some different factors tonight, and we got to make sure that we're focusing in and staying level.”

Evgeni Malkin was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct early in the second period. The sequence started with Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin slashing Malkin on the hand, which he didn’t like. From there, they had some back-and-forth around the Sabres zone before Malkin slashed Dahlin up high with his stick.

The Sabres went to a five-minute power play, and the Penguins’ woes continued. They challenged for goaltender interference when Josh Doan made contact with Arturs Silovs and impeded his ability to make a stop on Josh Norris.

But it was unsuccessful, as the league ruled that Kris Letang had caused Doan to interfere with Silovs. That had the Penguins frustrated, and understandably so.

“He touched [me] already prior to the push,” Silovs said. “It was clearly goalie interference.”

“My view is on goalie interference, because their player skated into the blue paint, made contact with our goalie, which affected the play, which is the rule,” Muse added. “He came in and made contact. Afterwards, there's a little bit of push (from Letang). He initiated the contact in there.

“So, by the rules of goalie interference, I still feel like it's goalie interference, and it seems like it changes day to day right now. People can maybe question some of the challenges I've made. There's been a lower percentage (ones), but this one I thought was pretty clear.”

At that point, the game had been tied. The Penguins surrendered a shorthanded goal in the first period, with Ryan McLeod picking off a pass along the boards and converting a breakaway. But Bryan Rust got it back with his trademark move, powering to the net for a shorthanded breakaway goal of his own.

So, while the Norris power-play goal only gave Buffalo a 2-1 lead, the cumulation of everything that had happened was difficult for the Penguins to overcome in the moment.

“Obviously, anytime you go down 5-on-3 on something you might not agree with, I think it can affect negatively,” Bryan Rust said. “Probably need to do a little bit better of a job kind of managing our emotions in that situation, but it's hard to dig out of."

It doesn’t help that the Penguins haven’t had much luck when it comes to goalie interference calls this season, as Muse had referenced. But Rust said they have to focus on turning the page quick in those situations.

“I think that has to be kind of a thing that we have in our mind as we go through the year because I don't think we've had a lot of fortunate calls from referees with things like that this year, which sucks,” Rust said. “Obviously, that's not an excuse, but I think we just have to be a lot better having a little bit of a thicker skin."

After the teams eventually went back to full strength, the Penguins did push as the period went on, with Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukonen making some strong saves.

“I thought we created some opportunities there at the end of the second,” Muse said. “If we get one of those, it's a different feeling going into the third period. It's potentially a different third period.”

The message for his team after two losses in a row for the first time since January, said Muse, is "be pissed off. I don't want anybody walking out today saying, ‘This is okay.’ You also have to be quick to turn the page."

After the NHL trade deadline at 3 PM Eastern time on Friday, they have a weekend back-to-back, hosting Philadelphia on Saturday and Boston on Sunday.

“You get home, you get some sleep, and we get to the rink tomorrow. We have to look at ways that we can be better, and we have to quickly turn the page, and we have to be ready for this next game," Muse said. "That's where we're at. I think an important part is you don't let things continue to build. I'd say the same thing if we had a game that we really liked. You’ve got to be ready for the next one, because these are all turning fast.”