Empty Thoughts: Rangers 3, Penguins 2 (OT)

Observations from the Penguins’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Rangers.

NEW YORK — This game started on a similar path as the Penguins’ previous four games in that they gave up the first goal of the game. And as was the case in their past three games, they gave up the first goals of the game.

They yielded another multi-goal lead and had to find a way to claw back into the game to even tie it.

But this game felt different, at least to Penguins coach Mike Sullivan.

Sullivan objected to a question in which it was queried if there was a way to rectify the team’s repeated slow starts.

“Tell me how many slow starts that we’ve had this year,” Sullivan responded back.

It was then pointed out that the Penguins had fallen behind by multiple goals in recent games.

“Just because we got scored against, does that suggest it’s a slow start?”

It might be a matter of semantics, but falling behind early in games by several goals is generally not ideal, no matter the method.

Regardless, Sullivan was quick to draw a distinction between this game and the several preceding it.

“We had a slow start tonight,” Sullivan said. “For me, it’s about a mindset before the puck drops. We weren’t really to play. They were ready to play. They outplayed us in the first period. Having said that, for most of this year, this team has been ready to play from the drop of the puck and played extremely well. We haven’t always ended up on the right side of the score coming out of the first period. But from our estimation, we believe we’ve played extremely well. That’s why I respond to you the way I respond. I’m not trying to be disrespectful but I guess I respectfully disagree that we’ve had a lot of slow starts this year. We’ve ended up on the wrong side of the score. I give our guys a lot of credit for fighting back. If you’re in a two-goal deficit, it’s hard to climb out of that. We climbed out of it tonight but for me, the lesson learned is that we’ve got to play a full 60 (minutes).”

The Penguins had to play 62:24, to be precise, and came up short in a game which was very winnable, even with a lineup hindered due to injuries to important players.

“I didn’t like how we played in the first period yet again,” forward Jared McCann said. “We made too many mistakes. They capitalized on them. We were clawing back the whole game. I liked our effort in the second and third. But other than that, it wasn’t a good game.”

What happened

The Rangers had most of the contest’s momentum early as they primarily controlled play in the offensive zone throughout the initial stages minutes of regulation. That early surge manifested itself in a breakaway score by rookie forward Kaapo Kaako at 6:42 of the first period.

Lugging the puck up from his own right half wall, Rangers forward Brendan Lemieux snapped off a tape-to-tape pass to just inside the opposite blue line between Penguins defensemen Marcus Pettersson and Justin Schultz. Kaako, the second overall selection in this year’s draft, took the pass, blew past the defenders and attacked the net. Approaching the crease, he tucked a backhand shot past Murray’s left skate. Assists went to Lemieux and defenseman Tony DeAngelo.

Shortly after the Penguins’ failed to convert their second power play of the first, the Rangers doubled their lead with only 10 seconds remaining in the period. After Rangers forward Filip Chytil got the puck deep on the left wing and lost it in the left circle, forward Artemi Panarin reclaimed it and fed a cross-ice pass to defenseman Adam Fox in the right circle. Taking a moment to survey the cage, Fox sniped a wrister past Murray’s glove hand on the near side. Panarin and Chytil had assists.

The Penguins rebounded almost immediately as the second period started. Controlling a puck on the offensive right half wall, Malkin fed a pass to Pettersson at the center point then almost immediately received the puck back from Pettersson. Drawing in a handful of defenders, Malkin distributed a cross-ice pass to Schultz above the left circle. As forward Dominik Simon provided a screen, Schultz moved low into the left circle and fired a wrister past goaltender Alexandar Georgiev’s glove hand on the far side at the 1:13 mark. Malkin and Pettersson collected assists.

At 12:33 of the second, the Penguins got their first power-play score since Oct. 13. Going deep with the puck on the left wing, Pettersson fed a pass to forward Dominik Kahun to the left of the cage. Kahun went forehand to backhand on a pass to the left circle where Simon momentarily lost it while battling with Rangers forward Ryan Strome but was able to divert the puck to the right circle where forward Jared McCann fired a wrister past Georgiev’s glove hand on the near side. That score snapped a hideous slump of 28 consecutive unsuccessful power-play opportunities. Simon netted the lone assist.

With acres of open ice in overtime, Malkin attacked the net deking past Fox in the offensive slot but failed to get a shot off. Chasing after the puck on the end boards, he fed a blind pass to the slot for forward Bryan Rust but had it stolen by Kaako, who then fed it to Fox.

Pushing play up the left wing, Fox veered to the slot, opened up the left wing and fed it back to Kakko, who tapped his second goal of the contest past Murray’s right skate at the 2:24 mark. Fox had the lone assist.

Statistically speaking

• The Penguins controlled shots, 32-27.

• Rust led the game with five shots.

• Forwards Chris Kreider, Kaako ,Panarin and defenseman Jacob Trouba each led the Rangers with three shots on net.

• Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin led the game with 24:23 of ice time on 27 shifts.

• Strome led the Rangers with 21:32 of ice time on 24 shifts.

• The Penguins had a 23-22 edge in faceoffs (51 percent).

• Malkin was 10 for 14 (71 percent).

• Kreider was 7 for 8 (88 percent).

• Penguins defensemen Jack Johnson, John Marino, Lemieux, DeAngelo and Trouba each led the game with three blocked shots.

Historically speaking

• Schultz (109 points) surpassed forward Maxime Talbot (108) for 80th place on the franchise’s career scoring list.

• Murray (433) surpassed Jean-Sebastien Aubin (432) for ninth place on the franchise’s career list of goals allowed.

• The Penguins’ last overtime loss to the Rangers came in a 4-3 setback at home on April 6. Strome scored the winning goal:

Randomly speaking

• Even with the loss, this might have been Murray’s best game of the season. He stopped several odd-man rushes in the first period and even came up with a few high-end saves on Rangers forwards Pavel Buchnevich Brett Howden down the stretch in the third period. Murray had plenty of reasons to be happy with this game individually.

• Alex Galchenyuk, not so much. After stringing together several solid games, he struggled as he lined up with McCann and Guentzel. Sullivan even offered a frank assessment of Galchenyuk (see below).

• Yes, the Penguins scored a power-play goal. That’s obviously a tremendous development given the wretched skid they were in. But they didn’t exactly look good with the man advantage. They combined for two shots on their first two power-play chances in the first. Then with their third chance in the second, the first unit allowed the Rangers to clear the puck at least three times before the second unit found a way to convert a botched passing sequence into a goal.

Considering who they are missing with Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Patric Hornqvist and how things have gone for the past month, beggars can’t be choosers. But there just feels like there’s plenty of room for improvement to do even after this goal.

• If there was any hope for Nick Bjugstad to get things going after scoring in Boston last week, it’s kind of dissipated in the three games since. He’s just another guy on the ice doing nothing of note, good or bad. He has been promoted to the top power-play unit in the slot due to all the injuries and he’s just not offering anything noticeable.

• Given the injury situation, it might be an ideal time to break up the fourth line. Specifically, move Brandon Tanev to a more prominent role. He’s a nice fit on that line with Teddy Blueger and Zach Aston-Reese, but he could really offer more given the injury woes.

Publicly speaking

• Malkin didn’t draw the same distinction as Sullivan in comparing his team’s play in recent games to this contest:

“It’s the same problem (as) the last three games. We need to start better. For 20 minutes, a little bit soft. We understand if we want to win, we need to play better. The last 40 minutes, we play good. We understand, no Sid, no (Letang), no (Hornqvist), we need to work harder. Like 120 percent.”

• Malkin fell on the sword for the overtime goal:

“My fault in (overtime). I need to save the puck behind the net. Play a little bit (more) simple.”

• McCann laid out how the power-play score worked out:

“It was a great breakout. Our coaches showed a lot of (their penalty kill) and how they like to stay in the lines. We came in with a lot of speed. Kahun made a great play down at the goal line there to Simon and he found me on the back door.”

• Sullivan was relieved to finally get a power-play goal:

“It’s a good feeling. I was happy for the players. Because I know they want to score. It’s been a little bit of a struggle. It wasn’t the prettiest goal but usually that’s how it happens. We’re going to try to build on that.”

• Sullivan didn’t mince words about Galchenyuk:

“He’s just got to be more focused on just playing the game the right way. Competing on pucks, winning puck battles, being strong on the wall, all the details of the game. If a goal scorer struggles, just based on my experience, part of it is taking the focus off of the scoring and just trying to focus on what you can control. That’s just how you play the game, how you think the game, how hard you compete on pucks. Just being focused on that next play, then I think that goal will come.”

Visually speaking

• Game summary.

• Event summary.

• Highlights:

Follow the Penguins all season long.