Pittsburgh's season series against the Rangers ended on the sourest of notes. The Penguins fell 6-0 to New York in their rematch on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, after a 4-2 loss on Thursday in that same building.
Sully Says: "Tonight Was A Humbling Experience For All Of Us"
The Penguins need to have a short memory after a 6-0 loss to the Rangers
"Tonight, obviously, was tough," Sidney Crosby said. "We weren't good, and it showed on the scoreboard. So, we've just to move by it."
The Penguins are still in the top Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference with 78 points and one game in hand on the Islanders, who are in second place. The Panthers defeated New Jersey earlier tonight to climb within one, now in third place with 77 points and 69 games played.
The Penguins actually played pretty well in the first period, outshooting the Rangers 14-8, but entering the first intermission down 2-0 after Artemi Panarin's power-play goal in the final seconds. The second period is where it all fell apart.
The Rangers scored twice in the first 6:43, chasing Tristan Jarry from the net for the third time in the past six games. Jacob Trouba found the back of the net on the first shot that Casey DeSmith faced in relief, with Panarin's second of the game giving the Rangers a 6-0 lead after 40 minutes.
"They get a late one in the first and get some momentum. We still have lots of time," the captain said. "Then they get the third… I'd say (it went wrong) at some point in the second period. I don't specifically know when. Six-nothing is a pretty tough deficit to come back from."
The Penguins lost Marcus Pettersson early in the third to a lower-body injury, which meant their already depleted D corps took yet another blow. They entered the game without Jeff Petry, who suffered an upper-body injury in the last game, and Jan Rutta - with trade deadline acquisition Dmitry Kulikov already on the shelf with a lower-body injury.
Here's what head coach Mike Sullivan had to say after the loss.
Where do you think it went wrong tonight?"It's a hard question to answer right after a game like this. I thought we came out with the right intent. I thought we had, for the most part, a pretty good first period. We were down 2-0."
With Jarry, were you pulling him to change something else, or did you not like what you were seeing?"There were a number of things that were going through my mind at that particular point. You know, sometimes you make a change with the goaltender to try to create a spark. But there were a number of things that went through my mind."
Is goaltending a big concern, since the numbers don't reflect well for a while now?"Yeah, you know, I think every night it's a little bit different. I know that the numbers don't appear, on the surface, to be what they are. But some of the looks that we gave up were high-quality looks. Those are the things that we're working on to try to eliminate. But without a doubt, I just think we're working with Tristan to get him up to his best game. And you guys have asked me these questions here for the last couple of weeks. My answer hasn't changed. It is what it is. And so, we're trying to get him repetitions, we're trying to help him there under difficult circumstance. So, we're working at it, I think he's making strides, for sure. His last game, I thought it was a real strong game that he had. Tonight, for me, is a real tough one to assess."
This is kind of low-hanging fruit, and I ask this respectfully - but Jeff Carter and Brian Dumoulin have been on the ice for a lot of goals against for a while now, including a couple of pretty big mistakes in the first period. What are you seeing that keeps them in the lineup?"You know, you guys like to pick on certain guys, and you go to them all the time. We respectfully disagree with you in a lot of circumstances. When goals are scored, we look at a lot of the details on the how's and the why's. The reality is, it's more than one person, for the most part, when goals end up in the back of your net. So, I think those are easy guys to pick on. But I will tell you is that all year long, we put them in difficult circumstances. Those guys play against top players in defensive situations all the time. Carts, going into tonight's game, is sixth in the league in faceoff percentage. Sixth overall. In the whole league. He wins a lot of faceoffs. We win the faceoff, we don't gain the blue line, there are a number of circumstances that are involved there. It's not just any one guy. So what I would say to you guys, is I think it's easy for you guys to pick on one or two guys, and what I will tell you is that I respectfully disagree with all of you. Are we making some mistakes? Sure. But when you get put in those situations as often as those guys do, there was a stretch of 20 games leading up to the last little while here where they were doing a pretty admirable job in that same circumstance. So, I understand your question. But I think the answer to the question is a little bit deeper than just scratching the surface like you guys do. It's never any one guy's fault when those types of things happen. It's a team game out there. There's six guys on the ice. It's all of those guys' responsibility to execute, and we didn't do it in certain situations."
How much of a challenge is it going to be for you and for everybody in that room, with only four weeks left, to stabilize this and not have it just be so up and down in terms of results?"Well, I just think at this time of year, we have to have a short memory. For all intents and purposes, we're in the playoffs right now. That's how we feel. We're in the playoffs right now. We're playing with our backs against the wall. We've got an opportunity to solidify a playoff spot. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to keep our eye on the ball right in front of us, and the one game that was right in front of us tonight was the Rangers. It didn't go our way. The reality is that nothing's changed. We still have control of our destiny. We've got to go out and get ready and win the next game. We're trying to learn through the experiences, don't get me wrong. We're looking at film. We're trying to help these guys. We're trying to grow through these experiences. Tonight was a humbling experience for all of us. These guys that put the uniform, they're proud guys, and they care - a lot - about what's going on here. So, nobody feels it more than the players themselves and the coaching staff. But also, we believe in this group, and we believe we have what it takes. We're going to have to pick ourselves up off the mat, dust ourselves off and get back in the fight."
