Following the conclusion of the Olympic break, the team knew that March would feature little rest and many games against the league’s top opponents. Now, in the midst of the month, the Pittsburgh Penguins know that there is little room for error.
“Nobody is going to feel sorry for us,” Bryan Rust said. “Not inside, not outside. We gotta get back to work, we’re in the fight of our lives, things are extremely tight with a lot of teams, and we’ve got to get points.”
While the team played one of their more complete performances of the season in Colorado just eight days ago, the top-placed team in the entire NHL came with a response after they defeated the Penguins 6-2 on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena.
“I don’t really think the score really reflected how we felt throughout the game,” Erik Karlsson said. “I don’t think we played bad today. Obviously, we didn’t play good enough to win either. We played one of the best teams in the league, if not the best team. That just showed today.”
All season long, the team has done an outstanding job at turning the page and responding strongly after a poor performance. After losing 5-1 against Carolina on Sunday, Pittsburgh found themselves coming out slow to start Tuesday’s game.
Five minutes into the first period, Parker Wotherspoon fumbled the puck on his stick, which allowed Nathan MacKinnon to have a breakaway against Arturs Silvos. MacKinnon, who entered Tuesday’s game as the league-leader in goals, snapped the shot past Silovs for his 46th of the season.
“I think for the majority of games, I think we’re playing well, but when we do give up chances, they’re really, really good chances,” Rust said on the team’s defense as of late. “When you’re playing against players in the NHL, they’re probably going to score on a lot of those.”
The Penguins would find a response when Egor Chinakhov would continue his hot streak when he one-timed a shot from the point that zipped by Scott Wedgewood and in. Kris Letang assisted on the goal and recorded the 800th point of his NHL career.
“I'm disappointed that [we] couldn't get a win here today on the day that he gets it, because it's obviously a big one,” Head Coach Dan Muse said. “It's a special one there for him, and it's well deserved.”
“You see the preparation that he puts in all the time, just the dedication to this game, to this team, to this organization, and you see why he's been doing this for so long. Sometimes, because now I've been around it for almost a full season — I hope nobody takes for granted what these guys are doing.”
Per Pens PR, Letang is the fourth active defenseman, and fourth member of the 2005 draft class, to record 800 career points. The Penguins are the sixth team in NHL history to have multiple picks from the same draft each record 800+ points for the franchise (Letang, 800; Crosby, 1750).
As the period went on, the Penguins were able to generate quality scoring chances, but so were the Avalanche. In less than two minutes, Sam Malinski, Martin Necas, and Parker Kelly all got on the board for Colorado as they made it 4-1 within the first 20 minutes.
“I think for the first part of that period, we were doing really well,” Rust said. “Obviously, to give up that much offense in a short period of time, we dug ourselves a hole that we didn’t find a way out of.”
One area that has been spectacular all season long has been the team’s penalty kill. With the current absence of Blake Lizotte, one of the team’s most important penalty killers, the players know they have to be better.
“I think short-handed, when there are opportunities to get the puck 200 feet, we have to do that,” Rust said. “I think maybe we can do a little bit more of a concerted effort, kind of up and down the lineup, of blocking some shots, too. It’s going to have to be a team effort.”
Regrouping during the intermission, the Penguins had a better start in the second period. Off of Ryan Shea’s shot, Justin Brazeau got the rebound in front of Wedgewood and scored what he thought was his 17th goal of the season, but Colorado would challenge for goaltender interference.
After a lengthy review, the officials ruled that it was no-goal as there was goaltender interference.
“We got to focus in on what we can control,” Muse said. “I don't know. Did it impact the game? Yeah. It doesn't matter what I felt. At the end of the day, [you] gotta respond. I felt differently than the league on that one, but that's how it goes. And we got to make sure that we respond to the situation at hand.”
While the score remained 4-1, the Penguins would get another chance to get back in the game after Tommy Novak drew a four-minute double-minor penalty for high-sticking. On the power play, Pittsburgh just could not get things to click.
“It would have been a two-goal game, and giving us some momentum, hopefully,” Rickard Rakell said. “But still something we got to fight through, as we have a lot of times this year. So right now, it's just a frustrating feeling coming up short.”
Throughout the rest of the game, the Penguins would continue to see grade-A scoring chances, most notably in the third period. But once again, Wedgewood was there to shut things down.
“I thought that we came out in the third not trying to lose the game, we were trying to push still,” Rust said. “Obviously, the score was very lopsided, but we’re not going to give up in here. I thought we had opportunities. Give credit to Wedgewood, he made a lot of really good saves.”
The Penguins were given a five-on-three power play to work with in the third period. With high-danger scoring chances from Crosby, Rust, and Rakell, Pittsburgh came close to bringing themselves back into the game.
“Some of it, we might have missed on a couple, but (Wedgewood) also made some big saves,” Muse said. “And some of the saves that he made at the moments that he did, I feel like things could have felt a little bit different there had we scored on any of those.”
Halfway through the third period, the Penguins were able to get a second puck past Wedgewood after Rakell converted off of Crosby’s setup for his 15th goal of the season. Pittsburgh would pull Silovs for the extra attacker, but Ross Colton put the game away with the empty net to make it 6-2.
The Penguins will look to regroup tomorrow as they have a team practice before flying to Ottawa, where they will take on the Senators in two days.
“We’ve got to win. That’s the bottom line,” Karlsson said. “We should go into Ottawa on Thursday feeling good about ourselves and knowing that if we keep doing this and just a little bit more consistent from shift to shift, we’re going to have a better outcome than we did tonight.”
