Musings: Penguins Got Away From What Works in Shootout Loss to Rangers

The Penguins failed to put together a full 60 minutes in New York on Saturday afternoon, and fell to the Rangers in a shootout, 3-2.

Anthony Mantha and Ryan Shea scored for Pittsburgh, while Stuart Skinner stopped 23 of 25 shots in his first start out of the Olympic break.

“I thought we got away from what was working,” Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse said. “A lot of those elements weren't there in the second and third. And so, that's on us. There’s going to be momentum swings in a game. We got away from things that work when there were some swings going to the other side. So, that can't happen. Result is what it is because of that.”

Going into the game, Muse had said he wanted his team to continue to build on the third period they put together in their win over New Jersey on Thursday, their first game action since Feb. 5.

The Penguins did carry that strong play into this afternoon, putting together a dominant first period from the drop of the puck. They drew a penalty less than 90 seconds into play, and Mantha tipped a shot from Erik Karlsson for his 21^st goal of the season.

The Penguins went back to the man-advantage when Olympic gold medalist and Upper St. Clair native Vince Trocheck was called for unsportsmanlike conduct. Bryan Rust put home a feed from Evgeni Malkin. But Mike Sullivan used his coach’s challenge, and it was determined that Mantha had made contact with Igor Shesterkin’s skate. The call on the ice was overturned.

After the game, Malkin he didn’t know why Rust’s goal didn’t count. “Sometimes I do not understand the rules, because we play New Jersey at home, it’s like the same,” Malkin said, referring to the Penguins unsuccessfully challenging for goaltender interference against the Devils. “(Arturs Silovs) tries to stop the puck and the forward touches his glove and they score. We did not.”

Rust nearly got it back when he rang a shot off the crossbar. Overall, the Penguins finished with 10 shots, and gave up just two, in that opening frame.

But as Muse said before the game, even though the Rangers have started another retool, it’s the National Hockey League. Every team’s got great players, and every team is dangerous.

“I know this group that they have over there, I've coached a lot of them,” said Muse, who was an assistant coach with the Rangers before becoming head coach of the Penguins. “They're guys that have a lot of skill. It's a proud group.”

They pushed hard in the second, putting 11 shots on Stuart Skinner, and finding a goal of their own on the power play off the stick of Mika Zibanejad. But the Penguins did come away with a 2-1 lead, thanks to a beautiful goal from Shea.

The defenseman displayed some fantastic poise on the blue line, holding onto the puck under pressure before spinning away from coverage and letting a shot fly that went into the back of the net.

“We did not play bad. We played okay. But we just need to play a little bit simple sometimes,” Malkin said. “We try to play beautiful sometimes, but the game against Rangers, it’s so tight. We need to maybe sometimes go to net, like how Sheazo scored. (Noel Acciari) was by Igor, and the puck went in. It’s a simple shot, and we score.”

Pittsburgh’s third period wasn’t on Thursday’s level, as the Rangers tied it early on a fantastic re-direct from Taylor Raddysh. New York had long stretches in the offensive zone, with Skinner producing some huge stops.

“To be completely honest, it felt really weird in the first period,” Skinner said. “For myself personally, I thought I had to kind of go through a couple stretches in the first and second period, kind of get my feet underneath me. The speed of the game is obviously a lot faster when you go from zero to 100. So yeah, it was a long time, and I thought for me, I really worked out the kinks. By the third period, even by halfway through the second period, I felt way, way better. So, keep on doing that.”

The Penguins did have some good shifts, most notably from Malkin's line wth Tommy Novak and Egor Chinakhov line. Once the game went to overtime, Malkin was a beast, producing some glorious chances.

“You can see it, when Geno's driving like that – the chances he got in overtime, I mean, the year he's having right now – I think that's where his game's at,” Muse said.

Skinner came up with some equally magnificent saves. But the game went to the shootout, which has been Pittsburgh’s Achilles heel this season. They are now 1-9 in that situation after the Rangers won, though it was Skinner’s first with this group after coming over from Edmonton.

“It’s both sides,” Muse said. “We’ve continued to work on it. We’ll continue to look at it. It just hasn’t been good. It’s on all of us. We got to keep looking at ways we can get better at it. We’ve tried some different guys, we’ve tried some different things, but the results are what they are.”

The Penguins have a quick turnaround, hosting the Golden Knights at 1 PM.

“It’s a tough game, but we look tomorrow, play back-to-back against Vegas, a good team, great challenge,” Malkin said. “Back home. We play hard. I’m not saying anything bad tonight. We played hard.”