Observations from the Penguins’ 3-2 loss to the Ducks:

In the spring of 2018, the Penguins really wanted to sign an intriguing defenseman out of Finland named Juuso Riikola.

So they recruited him. Hard.

General manager Jim Rutherford and former assistant general manager Bill Guerin did what they could to get him to come across the Atlantic and join the Penguins.

Just to make their case a little bit stronger.

They had a pretty big name call Riikola to coax him into coming to North America.

“Once we got down to crunch time, we pulled out our ace in the hole,” Rutherford during his radio show with team broadcaster Josh Getzoff on Oct. 24, 2018. “We had Mario call him. That made a big difference in his decision to have Mario Lemieux call, the owner of the team.”

Riikola signed as an undrafted free agent in May of 2018. Since then, it’s been something of a mixed bag for him. He had a marvelous 2018 preseason but little of that translated into much of note during his first NHL season of 2018-19.

After re-signing to a one-year contract in the 2019 offseason, Riikola has been little more than a spare part this season. Early in 2019-20, he even played left wing when the forward ranks were depleted by injuries.

As the season has worn on and injuries have ravaged the blue line, most notably to Brian Dumoulin and John Marino, Riikola has been an infrequent presence in the lineup.

As of late, the left-handed Riikola has been scratched in favor of right-handed Zach Trotman. On Friday, Trotman was in the lineup on his off side, and was responsible, in some fashion, for two of Anaheim’s goals.

After Monday’s trade deadline cleared, Rutherford was asked about potentially adding a defenseman and essentially said the prices for defensemen were too much for the Penguins. He then boasted, as he often does, of having nine NHL defenseman, including Trotman.

To be clear, Riikola isn’t going to make or break the Penguins’ lineup. He was burnt for a breakaway goal in a 4-0 road loss to the Maple Leafs on Feb. 20. He’s probably no better than a No. 6 defenseman on his best day. The Penguins’ ongoing five-game losing streak is much bigger than Riikola or Trotman.

But given the Penguins’ current limitations with regards to injuries, having a left-handed defenseman playing that side of the ice compared to a right-handed defenseman would presumably give this hamstrung team a better set up to play a simple game which would allow it to get past this rough patch.

Coach Mike Sullivan was asked by reporters in Anaheim after this game about dressing Trotman and he offered his standard answer about any sort of lineup decision.

“It’s the same criteria we use every time we make a lineup,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to put the best guys on the ice that we think give us the best chance to win.”

In the past, Sullivan has offered similar answers when asked about players such as Sergei Plotnikov, Daniel Sprong, Ian Cole and other he has been less than enamored with.

Thankfully for the Penguins’ sake, Dumoulin and Marino appear on the verge of returning to the lineup and could make this issue moot.

What happened

The Ducks opened the scoring 14:14 into regulation. Taking a pass in his own left corner, Penguins defenseman Zach Trotman hurried a poor pass to his partner, Chad Ruhwedel, in the slot but completely missed him, sending the puck off of the opposite half wall. Ducks defenseman Josh Manson claimed the loose puck at the right point, slinked his way up the right wall and banked it off the end boards. Ducks forward Keifer Sherwood claimed the puck behind the cage and slide a backhand pass to the front of the crease where Ducks forward Danton Heinen chopped a forehand shot on net. Goaltender Matt Murray made the initial save but the rebound bounced off Trotman’s left thigh and into the net. Heinen netted his eighth goal of the season. Assists went to Sherwood and Manson.

The Penguins got on the scoreboard with a power-play goal only 1:16 into the second period. Settling a loose puck off the left half wall, Penguins defenseman Justin Schultz fed a pass to partner Marcus Pettersson at center point. Backpedaling above the right circle, Pettersson waited for a shooting lane to open up and cracked a slapper at the cage. Penguins forward Jason Zucker was positioned just to the left of the crease and deflected the puck with the shaft of his stick past goaltender John Gibson’s blocker for his 18th goal. Pettersson and Schultz had assists.

Anaheim got its own power-play goal at 9:23 of the second period. From the Penguins’ left corner, Ducks forward Ryan Getzlaf fed a pass to the right circle for forward Sam Steel who lifted a wrister on net. Murray made the initial save but the rebound bounced off of the cross bar. The rebound deflected to the left of the cage. Getzlaf settled the puck and shuffled a wrister past kneeling Penguins defenseman Kris Letang for his 13th goal. Steel and forward Sonny Milano netted assists.

A pretty critical moment of this game occurred at 14:01 of the second. Short-handed, Penguins forward Patrick Marleau pushed a puck up the left wing and centered it for forward Bryan Rust whose redirection was denied by a stunning left skate save by Gibson, the Whitehall native:

A goal there and the Penguins probably have a ton of momentum. Instead, the Ducks struck a little later.

It became a 3-1 game at 17:20 of the second. Former Penguins forward Carter Rowney lifted a wrister from the right circle which Murray fought off. Trotman backhanded the rebound up slot. On a backcheck, Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin deflected the puck to above the left circle where Ducks defenseman Brendan Guhle claimed it. Dragging it to the high slot, Guhle fired a wrister which hit off Trotman’s left knee and deflected past Murray’s glove hand. There were no assists.

With Murray pulled for an extra attacker, the Penguins pulled within one at 18:39 of the third period. Pettersson corralled a puck behind his blue line, shielded it from Ducks forward Max Jones and fed a pass to the offensive blue line for forward Jared McCann, who one-touched it to an onrushing Zucker. Gaining the offensive zone, Zucker gripped and ripped a wrister which glanced off Ducks defenseman Jacob Zucker’s stick and beat Gibson’s glove on the far side. McCann and Pettersson collected assists.

Statistically speaking

-The Penguins led in shots, 30-21.

-Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist led the game with six shots.

-Forward Adam Henrique led the Ducks with four shots.

-Penguins defenseman Kris Letang led the game with 27:51 of ice time on 33 shifts.

-Manson led the Ducks with 22:04 of ice time on 26 shifts.

-The Ducks controlled faceoffs, 28-20 (58 percent).

-Penguins forward Sidney Crosby was 10 for 14 (71 percent).

-Getzlaf was 9 for 12 (75 percent).

-Guhle led the game with four blocked shots.

-Pettersson and defenseman Jack Johnson each led the Penguins with three blocked shots.

Historically speaking

-Justin Schultz (110 points) surpassed forward Wayne Bianchin, defenseman Jim Johnson and defenseman Paul Martin (109 each) for 80th place on the franchise’s career scoring list.

-Since we didn’t have an Empty Thoughts following Wednesday game, we neglected to get to the uniform numbers for the new guys. Our apologies.

-Forward Evan Rodrigues became the 26th player in franchise history to wear No. 9. His predecessors:

Andy Bathgate, Charlie Burns, Billy Hicke, Al McDonough, Chuck Arnason, Simon Nolet, Blair Chapman, Mark Johnson, Stan Jonathan, Rich Sutter, Ron Flockhart, John Chabot, Wilf Paiement, Andrew McBain, Tony Tanti, Ron Francis, Len Barrie, Dan Quinn, Greg Johnson, German Titov, Rene Corbet, Jeff Toms, Rico Fata, Andy Hilbert, Pascal Dupuis

-Marleau became the 26th player to wear No. 12 for the franchise. His predecessors:

Ken Schinkel, Blaine Stoughton, Kelly Pratt, Greg Malone, Mitch Lamoureux, Dean DeFazio, Tom O’Regan, Tom Roulston, Bob Errey, Larry Depalma, Troy Murray, Chris Wells, Sean Pronger, Martin Sonnenberg, Billy Tibbetts, Michal Sivek, Ryan Malone, Chris Bourque, Brett Sterling, Richard Park, Jarome Iginla, Chuck Kobasew, Ben Lovejoy, Dominik Simon

-Simon gave up No. 12 to Marleau and adopted No. 18. He became the 28th player in franchise history to wear that number. His predecessors:

George Konik, Wally Boyer, Lowell MacDonald, Ross Lonsberry, Kevin McClelland, Tom Roulston, Craig Simpson, Jimmy Mann, Mark Recchi, Richard Zemlak, Jeff Daniels, Ken Priestlay, Francois Leroux, Garry Valk, Patrick Lebeau, Ryan Savoia, Josef Beranek, Shean Donovan, Steve Webb, Eric Boguniecki, Dominic Moore, Adam Hall, Marian Hossa, Chris Conner, James Neal, Frank Corrado, Alex Galchenyuk

-In 20 career games against the Penguins, Getzlaf has 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists).

Randomly speaking

-The Penguins have not had a five-game losing streak since a five-game stretch from Oct. 30 through Nov. 7 of 2018.

-Schultz’ assist was his first point since Nov. 12.

-The Penguins went 1 for 5 on the power play and snapped a four-game streak without a power-play goal.

Publicly speaking

-Murray held up the flag for his team after this game:

“It’s important to stay positive right now. We’re doing a lot of good things as a team. If we keep playing that way, the results going to start turning and go in our favor. … I know the character we have in this room. We’re just fine. We’re hitting a little bump in the road here like all teams do. It’s going to make us stronger in the long run. It will be tough to get through this one for sure. But we’ve got the character in here to do it. We’ll be better off for it in the long run.”

-Getzlaf and Crosby mixed it up in the second period in a scrum that involved players on both teams. Getzlaf was glib on their interaction:

“He was saying hi. We hadn’t talked for a while.”

Visually speaking

-Game summary.

-Event summary.

-Highlights:

Follow the Penguins all season long.

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