After a lackluster game against Ottawa on Saturday, the Penguins responded with a strong performance on Sunday versus Tampa Bay, but ended up on the wrong side of the score for the second time this weekend.
“They're two different games. Yesterday, we didn't really give ourselves a chance at all. Tonight, I thought we deserved better, but you don't get points for playing well,” Sidney Crosby said. “You got to find a way to win games, and we have to do that.”
The Lightning came away with a 5-2 win over the Penguins, with the game unraveling late in regulation.
Nikita Kucherov – who’s won the Art Ross Trophy (NHL leading scorer), Ted Lindsay Award (MVP as voted on by the players) and Hart Trophy (NHL MVP) – got his second goal of the night on Tristan Jarry with just over three minutes to go to break a 2-2 tie. Tampa Bay followed that up with two empty-netters.
“We played on top of them. I thought we defended hard in a lot of instances,” Head Coach Mike Sullivan said. “They have some game-breaking players on their side. It's unfortunate the way it just evolved in the last couple of minutes, because I thought our group played really hard.”
The Penguins, who are battling for a Wild Card playoff spot, are now 2-4-3 coming out of the holiday break.
“If you're looking at wins and losses, I mean – it's a pretty fine line,” Crosby said. “Obviously, the results haven't been there, but we've given ourselves a chance in a lot of those games to win.
“It’s a matter of details and big plays, and when you're stringing seven together, you're getting those plays, and when you're not, that’s probably the difference. But a lot of those games we're coming out of, we feel like we did a lot of good things. So, that's probably the most frustrating thing about it.”