Penguins look sleepy in home loss to Capitals
When determining who his starting goaltender is for each game, Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan often proclaims his is a difficult decision.
After all, Matt Murray is a two-time winner of the Stanley Cup, and Tristan Jarry has matured into an All-Star this season.
On Saturday, the Penguins operated in such a way that it was largely irrelevant if Murray, Jarry or a stack of cinder blocks and mortar were in the crease.
Allowing a number of odd-man rushes and bumbling their way through an extended five-on-three power-play, the Penguins stumbled through a wretched first period that proved too daunting to overcome in a 5-2 loss to the rival Washington Capitals at PPG Paints Arena.
“The first period,” forward Evgeni Malkin said, “we sleep.”
They got a rude awakening only 1 minute, 26 seconds into regulation. After receiving a pass in the slot, Capitals forward Nic Dowd, virtually uncontested, roofed a wrister past Murray’s blocker for his sixth goal of the season.
The Penguins had an excellent opportunity to tie the score at 7:12 of the first period when they were granted an extended five-on-three power-play opportunity that lasted a bloated 1:25. But all they could muster with that ample time was a single shot by Malkin.
At 18:28 of the first, Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom converted a two-on-one rush into his 12th goal before Capitals forward Richard Panik collected his ninth goal off a three-on-two sequence.
“We just kind of chased a mistake with another one,” Penguins forward Sidney Crosby said of the opening frame. “Our (effort) was there. It just (that) we made some bad reads. A team like that, that’s pretty opportunistic, they’re not going to make mistakes with those two-on-ones and things like that. We gave them too good of chances there.”
Said Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson: “When you let in a couple of goals, sometimes you try to do too much. You try to get to the puck too quick instead of communicating with each other. There were a couple of pinches that made it a couple of two-on-ones. Got to play smarter.”
After Penguins forward Jared McCann was denied by goaltender Braden Holtby on a penalty shot at 18:48 of the second period, the Penguins finally got on the scoreboard at 5:09 of the third when forward Conor Sheary stole a puck behind the Capitals net and set up Crosby at the crease for his 16th goal.
Malkin scored his 22nd goal of the season at 12:16 of the third and pulled the Penguins within two.
Capitals forward T.J. Oshie snuffed out any hopes of a comeback by scoring his 26th goal at 13:12 of the third.
“They took advantage of our mistakes and made us pay on the odd-man rushes,” said Murray, who finished with 23 saves. “That’s a skilled group, and they finished when they got their chances.”
With the considerable exception of All-Star forward Jake Guentzel (to say nothing of contributing forwards such as Anthony Angello, Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon), the Penguins dressed a lineup Saturday that was mostly able-bodied.
Yet they bore little resemblance to the team that relied on structure and succeeded with handfuls of call-ups from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton earlier in the season. Even in a 4-2 road win Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres, a team virtually eliminated from playoff contention, the Penguins allowed ample high-danger scoring chances.
“When a couple guys are injured, everyone steps up,” Malkin said. “We understand we need to play better. But when everyone is back, everyone is healthy, we think, ‘Oh, it’s so much much skill right now. And an easy game, we score every shift.’
“It’s not. We need to step up. It doesn’t matter who is in (the lineup.) When five or six guys are injured, we play so much better. It’s a little bit hard to understand right now.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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