After giving up a lead late in regulation on Thursday against Philadelphia (but recovering for a 3-2 overtime win), the Penguins did the same thing on Saturday against Minnesota. This time, they weren't able to get the result they wanted.
"Extremely disappointing to not be able to secure the two points there," said assistant coach Todd Reirden, who is handling Mike Sullivan's duties behind the bench with the head coach in COVID protocol. "But it's going to be an area that we're going to learn from and grow from so that as we go on in the year, we get better at playing with the lead. ... It's a big point for us considering our circumstances."
It was particularly frustrating considering how well the night had gone up until those last minutes of play. Despite yet another night with different players out of the lineup (for this particular game, it was Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Brian Dumoulin, Marcus Pettersson and Chad Ruhwedel), different players stepped up.
Like Kapanen, who had been goalless entering tonight's game, but finally broke through in a big way with his first career hat trick. And Guentzel, who stayed hot and got his second goal in as many games after not producing to his usual standards early on.
"Given our lineup and some of the players were missing, and how much energy we're expending, for us to score four goals tonight - I was real happy with where we were at heading into that final 10 minutes," Reirden said.
But when the Wild pulled Talbot for the extra attacker, Reirden and his players agreed that they fell into the usual trap of taking their foot off the gas and getting just a little too complacent.
"I think late in games, I know we know that teams are going to push," Rust said. "I think we got to have that pushback and try and stay on our toes a little bit. I think we're getting on our heels a little bit. I think that's costing us a little bit. I think the more aggressive we can be in those situations; the better that we're going to be."
It also didn't help that some players were put into circumstances they either hadn't been in before, or had never gotten regular reps in.
"Players get opportunities and either they take advantage of them, or they don't," Reirden said. "You coach them to improve so that the next time we do get that situation, they can respond and learn from it."
But truly, credit to the Penguins for the waythey responded after the Wild got that tying goal. They had plenty of opportunities in overtime, including two breakaways - one from Jason Zucker and one for John Marino - along with some huge stops from Jarry. The Penguins just couldn't find a way to get one, and Minnesota took over in the shootout.
"A fragile group may have continued to falter in the overtime, and I think we had more than our fair share of chances to win it there, and we weren't able to," Reirden said. "So again, credit to their goaltender making some big saves there. But I think that that's been a real calling card for our team, has been the way that we work and the expectation from our players.
"Through 10 games, with the different circumstances we've gone through, I'm real proud of our team thus far."
