Sully Says: We Knew This Would be a Fight to the End for a Playoff Spot
By
Michelle Crechiolo
Penguins Team Reporter
And with Florida beating Detroit, the Panthers (79 points) moved past Pittsburgh (78 points) into the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. They each have 70 games played, while the Islanders - who are in the first Wild Card spot with 80 points - have 71 games played.
"It's tough on a night like this, where you do a lot of good things and don't get rewarded," captain Sidney Crosby said. "Hopefully, having a good look at the way we need to play as an example here tonight will change the result the next game."
While the Penguins were depleted on the blue line entering this one, with four of their regular defensemen - Marcus Pettersson, Jeff Petry, Jan Rutta and Dmitry Kulikov all sidelined - the Senators were dealing with issues at the goaltender position. With their usual tandem of Cam Talbot and Anton Forsberg both injured, the Senators called up Dylan Ferguson - who'd been starring in the American Hockey League - to make his first career NHL start on Monday against Pittsburgh.
Despite the Penguins earning an 18-7 edge after the first period, they found themselves down 1-0 thanks to Ferguson's heroics. The Penguins continued to pepper him with pucks throughout the night, and he continued to stand on his head… until they finally broke through late in regulation to even the score with a huge goal from Rickard Rakell - moved from Sidney Crosby's line to Evgeni Malkin's line - with 5:21 remaining.
"We were attacking and playing well the whole game. We just needed more goals," Rakell said.
Unfortunately, with 3:05 remaining, the Senators headed to a power play after Chad Ruhwedel was called for interference. And the Penguins battled hard, with Tristan Jarry coming up with some huge saves that had the crowd chanting his name. But after Bryan Rust blocked a shot and couldn't get the subsequent clear while he was clearly hurting, Drake Batherson took advantage and netted game-winner.
"I don't care if my arm's falling off, I got to get that puck out of the zone and down the ice," a despondent Rust said in the locker room afterward.
The Penguins have now lost four in a row as they fight to make the playoffs for a 17th-straight season. Here's what head coach Mike Sullivan had to say after the game.
What's your take on the performance of the defensemen that had to get thrown into what was obviously a pretty difficult situation?"I thought they played a solid game. There was a lot to like about our overall team game. But those defenseman in particular, I thought they competed hard, they defended when we needed them to. I thought they played a real solid game for us."
You outshot them 48-21. In your mind, does that accurately summarize the way the game was played? "Yes."
Are there confidence issues when you go a couple of games about scoring a goal? Do you feel people clutching the sticks a little tighter than usual right now?"Obviously, for whatever reason, the last couple of games it's been a struggle to score. I thought tonight, we had an awful lot of looks - really high-quality looks - and the puck didn't go in the net for us. These guys care, they want to win, they're trying. I'm sure that's part of it. But we just got to find a way to control our emotions and keep grinding away. I thought we played well enough to win tonight. We didn't. And sometimes, that happens. But if we can continue to play that way, and get the type of looks that we got tonight, I think we'll get the results moving forward."
You obviously put enough pucks on net, to say at least. Did you have enough traffic? Did you have enough bodies there?"Yeah, that was something that we talked about a lot in between periods and throughout the course of the game. We could have had a little bit more traffic. Sometimes when you have so much zone time and so much possession time, you end up drifting away from the net. You extend zone time, per se, but you've got to find a way to penetrate - whether it's shooting the puck or getting people inside. I thought we got better at it in the third period, second half of the game. I thought we were talking about it on the bench, just getting someone at the blue paint, just to try to make the sidelines difficult. And maybe if we get people there, it'll encourage us to shoot the puck. I mean, it's not like we didn't shoot it, we had almost 50 shots. So it wasn't like we didn't shoot it - but we had opportunities to possibly shoot it more with the amount of possession time that we had, and the amount of offensive zone time that we had. But that was something that we talked about throughout the course of the game, just getting somebody there."
Tristan only faced 21 shots, but he did have to come up with a handful of challenging saves, like that breakaway in the second period. Just what was your assessment of his play tonight against the context of him trying to recapture his game? "I thought he was real good tonight. That's a different type of challenge when you don't see a lot of pucks, then they come down and get a couple of pretty good looks. The breakaway save was a real good save; he made a couple of good saves on the penalty kill right before their goal. I thought he just looked sharper in the net tonight. Just his movement, his posture… tracking pucks, things of that nature… some of the subtleties of his game, I thought they were much better."
Bryan Rust was pretty hard on himself after that missed clear… with a veteran of his standing, do you say much to him? "I mean, he knows. He knows what he needs to do to help us win. He's harder on himself than any of the rest of us. He understands the importance of those types of plays. I thought he competed really hard tonight. He had a lot of quality chances himself. He had a breakaway early in the game. He was around it a lot. He was on the puck. We tweaked the lines a little bit going into the third. We moved Raks with Geno, we moved Rusty with Sid and Jake. Raks ends up scoring on Geno's line. I thought Rusty with Sid and Jake, they had a lot of zone time. They were on the puck, they were around the crease a lot. So, I have to believe that if they continue to play like that and get those types of looks, the puck will go in the net."
Florida moved ahead of you in the Wild Card standings… how much does that enter your radar, if at all, on a daily basis?"Everybody scoreboard watches a little bit this time of year. It's human nature. But we're focusing on on what we can control in our game. The reality is we've got opportunities in front of us here. We've got to grab some points. We knew this was gonna be a fight to the end for a playoff spot. So, we've got some tough opponents coming up. We've got to be able to brush this one off. I think as much as the loss stings, I do believe there's something to feel good about with tonight's game. Just our compete level, and our execution was pretty good. We had a lot of looks. Ottawa is a good team, they're fast. They've got a quick strike offense. They've got a real solid team, and I thought our guys competed hard against them tonight."
