TORONTO — Sidney Crosby scored a crackerjack first-period goal on a power-play one-timer Saturday night and was named one of the three stars of the game.
He didn’t commit a glaring turnover or take an ill-timed penalty.
On the surface, it looked like he turned in the type of standout performance his teammates and fans have come to expect.
Deep down, though, he wondered if a couple of plays he didn’t make cost his team a game.
Travis Dermott and Zach Hyman scored on plays that started with Crosby faceoff losses as the Pittsburgh Penguins dropped a 3-2 decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs, seeing a modest two-game winning streak come to an end.
“I gotta win at least one of those,” Crosby said. “I lose a couple faceoffs, and it ends up in our net. It’s a game of mistakes. I made a couple there, and they ended up in our net.”
With the Penguins leading 2-1 halfway through the game, an icing call led to a faceoff in the defensive zone. Crosby lost a draw to Patrick Marleau, and one pass later, Dermott scored on a shot through traffic from the blue line.
Later in the second period, Crosby lost a defensive-zone draw to John Tavares. Seconds later, a Morgan Rielly shot from the left wing skidded to the front of the net, where Hyman outmaneuvered Kris Letang and scored as he was falling to his backside.
Crosby came into the game with a 56.4 winning percentage in the circle, the best mark of his career. He won more draws than he lost in the previous nine games. On this night, though, he lost 14 of the 19 faceoffs he took.
“It’s one of those things,” Crosby said. “It happens sometimes, and you get away with it. Unfortunately tonight, both ended up in the net.”
Coach Mike Sullivan wasn’t sure the lost faceoffs had the effect Crosby thought they did. Remember: There were four other Penguins skaters on the ice at the time.
“We’ve got to defend harder when we don’t win the draw,” Sullivan said. “That’s the nature of faceoffs. Yeah, we’d like our center icemen to win, but they’re not going to win them all. The ones that we lose, we’ve got a game plan to defend. We’ve got to defend, and we’ve got to defend hard.”
Toronto’s first goal also came on a net-front play. Auston Matthews tipped a Dermott point shot into Matt Murray then cleaned up the rebound when it dribbled out from under the goaltender’s left arm.
The Maple Leafs are known for their high-octane offense. With the one-two center punch of Matthews and Tavares, the craftiness of leading scorer Mitch Marner and a defense corps that can skate and score, they’re capable of creating a chance off the rush in the blink of an eye.
On Saturday, though, most of their chances came off the traffic they created.
In addition to Crosby’s goal, Teddy Blueger also scored for the second straight game for the Penguins. He picked a puck off of Garrett Wilson’s skate in a scramble near the left faceoff dot and fired a shot far side on goalie Garret Sparks.
That wasn’t enough to stave off a Toronto team intent on getting to the blue paint.
“There was a lot of low to high, point shots, screens, tips, rebounds, stuff like that,” Murray said. “I think that was the difference in the game, the net-front battles. I had a hard time finding the puck through traffic all night.”
Jonathan Bombulie is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jonathan at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BombulieTrib.
