Off to Philly

After the Penguins lost Game 2 to go down 2-0 in their opening-round playoff series with Philadelphia, Dan Muse walked to the media room at PPG Paints Arena to do his postgame availability with the assembled reporters.

When asked if the scrum in the waning seconds was frustration boiling over, or the players trying to set the tone for Game 3, Muse posed a question of his own.

“I mean, there should be frustration. They should be frustrated. We just lost two games at home. I think with frustration comes, how are you going to respond? How are we going to respond?” Muse said. “I would hope that every single guy in that room, the entire staff, nobody is happy right now. Nobody should be.

“Tomorrow we’re going to have to make a decision: Are we going to stay with it? Stay with what we want to do and get to our game, which we haven’t gotten to in two games? Or are we going to let frustration boil over into the next one? That’s going to be the choice we, together, all of us, including myself, are going to have to make here in the next 24 hours.”

The team canceled practice on Tuesday to allow the players to get what they needed out of the day before heading to the airport for an afternoon flight. Talking with Rickard Rakell before he left, it sounds like he is going with the former option. Because, for as challenging as the first two games were, they are still only two games, and it’s a best-of-seven. There is plenty of opportunity to flip the script of this series so far.

“I mean, it's really up to us,” Rakell said. “Obviously, we’re not happy with how these first two games have gone for us, and we definitely have a lot of things that we can improve.

“At the same time, like, we gotta go into Philly and change this series around, and that's all that matters for us right now – is to turn this around and do whatever it takes to tie this series up. ... We're a very tight group. We know that we've been through adversity before, and we know that we can get ourselves out of this, but it's going to take everything.”

Erik Karlsson said last night that it might actually be a good thing for the Penguins to get on the road and relieve some of the pressure they are feeling right now.

Because this group cares. They want to win for each other, for this city, and for everybody invested in this team. And while they’re a veteran group with plenty of experience, which is a big benefit in a lot of ways, it also means they understand just how difficult it is to get here – the Big Three and Karlsson more than ever right now.

Like Evgeni Malkin said after Game 1, “we know how we play and we just, like, maybe nervous too much or we want (it) too much. We just not thinking a little bit, I think. Everybody wants to play good.”

And as Kris Letang said today, “I think sometimes, like Erik said, you get caught in the hype and you want to do it so bad for the fans, and you kind of freeze or stuff like that.

“So, sometimes when you go on the road, it kind of makes it more simple. You just go out there, don't worry about anything else other than your game, and your focus is on only one thing.”

The Penguins will hold a morning skate at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Wednesday before the puck drops for Game 3 at 7 PM.

“We just gotta leave everything on the ice for this next game,” Rakell said. “It’s a huge game for us.”