The Pittsburgh Penguins held a lead at two different points during Sunday’s game, but they were unable to hold off the push from the Los Angeles Kings in the third period, ultimately losing 3-2.
“I thought that we had some good shifts still in the third, but just a couple of plays where we didn’t have guys back,” Tommy Novak said. “They’re good off the rush and executed it well. We’ll look at it, learn, and try to get better.”
After the team played such a hard and competitive game against the New Jersey Devils the day before, which resulted in a loss via the shootout, the Penguins only came away with one point from a weekend of back-to-back games.
“I just don’t think that we played well enough tonight,” Bryan Rust said. “It’s as simple as that.”
On a bright note, rookie goaltender Sergei Murashov made his highly anticipated NHL debut after being recalled from Wilkes-Barre earlier this week and being named the AHL’s Goaltender of the Month for October.
“He was awesome. He’s obviously an unbelievable goalie,” Rust said. “He made some big saves for us. I think we all would like to be a little bit better in front of him and not give them some of those grade-As that we did.”
Murashov’s debut had him become the fifth youngest goaltender in the past 25 years to make his NHL debut with the Penguins. While this was an important night for the 21-year-old netminder, Murashov is focused on getting wins for the team.
“Obviously, it's not the result I wanted, we wanted,” Murashov said. “Yes, it's a special night for me, but at the end of the day, all I'm wanting is just to get two points for the team. But it's a good lesson. We will learn from it and keep getting stronger, and me personally.”
While the goaltender might not have gotten the results that he wanted, Murashov still made some spectacular saves and received many cheers and chants from the fans in attendance.
“Overall, I just liked how I felt during the game. I enjoyed that,” Murashov said. “Just a huge thanks to my team, because it's the third game in four days, and they were battling, efforts were really high from them.”
Tommy Novak opened the scoring for the Penguins off a slick pass from Evgeni Malkin, who came into Sunday’s game tied for the league lead in assists.
“It’s just a great pass,” Novak said. “I tried to fight for net front positioning, it was right on my tape, a perfect pass. Easy job for me.”
Later in the first period, Kings captain Anze Kopitar, who played his last game in Pittsburgh on Sunday after announcing that he will be retiring at the end of the season, tied the game up on the power play off a tough angled shot from the corner that found its way past Murashov.
Anthony Mantha got the lone goal in the second period for his eighth goal of the season to add to Pittsburgh’s top-ranked power play in the NHL.
Both Corey Perry and Kevin Fiala found the back of the net in the third period and the Kings were able to shut things down defensively against the Penguins for the remainder of the game.
Pittsburgh will now have the next four days off as the team flies and prepares for two games in Stockholm, Sweden, as part of the NHL’s Global Series against the Nashville Predators.
More on tonight’s game from Head Coach Dan Muse:
Thoughts on Sergei’s first NHL game?: I thought he played well. I thought he had to come up with some big saves there for us. Obviously, that first one is kind of a weird bounce. He played well. He gave us a chance to win, that’s what we need from our goaltenders.
What can the team do to get back to holding third period leads?: I'm not at the point where I'm thinking it has to do necessarily with the third period. I think we got away from some of the defensive details that are important. I'm not just going to look at just goals. I mean, you look at the chances and what we gave up. And I also think we can do a better job of generating more five-on-five. It's both sides of it. We didn't get it done there tonight.
Are the penalty minutes that the team has been taking lately an area that you want to focus on in terms of improvement?: I think from game to game, we're always going to look at them and see exactly kind of where they're coming from and ways that we can clean that up. If you look at everything as a whole, it's an area that I think we can continue to make improvements on and we can clean them up.
What is your assessment of how the defense played in front of Murashov tonight?: I think the guys came out there to work. I just think we got a little bit away from it at times. Again, I'm not going to look at just goals, you look at the chances. As we go through it, I think that we could have put ourselves in some better spots defensively. I thought that they had opportunities to come into the zone with a lot of time and space, too often. And so, I think that sometimes starts there, even in the offensive zone, with our gaps and our positioning and our back pressure. And when those things aren't there, now they're coming in. And even if the numbers are even, there's a lot of space, and we can prevent that. We can do a better job of that. I think the guys, in terms of intentions, in terms of working, I think that was there. I think some of it was more of the details of the game that we could have cleaned up there tonight.
What do you think this upcoming trip can serve the team?: Number one, we need to win games. We need points. We got an opportunity right now to get a couple of practices in, and we need to get points. This is a trip where it's a great opportunity for the team to be together, to go on a trip like this, go over to Sweden, but at the end, we need points. We need to make sure that it's an opportunity to win, to go out there, and to get points. The last couple of games, I think we're doing a lot of things that are trending in a good direction and consistency. We need to make sure that that's there all the time. And there's clearly still room for improvement there. The last two, no points tonight, one point yesterday. It's going to be about we need to get points. Within that, though, it's an opportunity to be together in a really unique situation. To be able to do this in this league, go overseas, compete over in Sweden, and the experiences that'll bring. You hope that that's also something we take advantage of and continue to just grow as a group.
