Subscribe Place Ad Buy Trib Photos Readers' Choice Contests
Jobs Homes Autos Classifieds
Trib Total Media Contact Us
Penguins open early lead but lose on road to Blue Jackets | TribLIVE.com
Penguins/NHL

Penguins open early lead but lose on road to Blue Jackets

Seth Rorabaugh
Seth Rorabaugh
1706798_web1_1706798-49c5a067f5284dfeb3fe30fd942939c0
AP
The Blue Jackets’ Kevin Stenlund falls on the Penguins’ David Warsofsky during the second period Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019, in Columbus, Ohio.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a game which featured little offense, the Penguins’ got their lone goal from an unlikely source.

Reserve defenseman Juuso Riikola accounted for the Penguins’ lone goal in a 3-1 preseason loss to the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday.

Taking a pass at the left point, Riikola chopped a one-timer at the cage. As forward Thomas Di Pauli provided a screen, the puck sailed past goaltender Joonas Korpisalo’s glove for the score only 2 minutes, 3 seconds into regulation. Assists went to forward Andrew Agozzino and defenseman John Marino.

“A goal feels good always,” said Riikola, who experienced that feeling only two times as a rookie in the NHL last season.

“He’s real good on the offensive blue line,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s got a great shot. And he can use his mobility there as well.”

The Penguins failed to display much of a threat for the remainder of the contest despite outshooting the Blue Jackets, 25-22.

A power-play goal made it a 1-1 contest at 15:24 of the first. Digging a puck off the left-wing wall, Blue Jackets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois snapped a pass to forward Cam Atkinson who was wide open in the right circle. With minimal resistance, Atkinson had ample time to snipe the puck past goaltender Casey DeSmith’s glove.

After a scoreless second period, Columbus took the lead at 2:12 of the third. Collecting a loose puck on the left half wall, Blue Jackets forward Eric Robinson whacked it wide on the near side. The puck deflected off Penguins defenseman Erik Gudbranson’s left knee then caromed off DeSmith’s right shoulder and into the cage.

“I could have tracked that one a little bit better,” DeSmith said. “Off Gudbranson, he was behind the goal line I think. Then off my back and in. That was probably one of the weirder ones. You could probably try that a couple hundred thousand times and it wouldn’t happen again.”

An empty-net goal by Columbus forward Josh Anderson at with 36 seconds remaining in regulation capped off the scoring.

DeSmith finished with 20 saves.

The Penguins are 1-1-1 in the preseason and play the Detroit Red Wings at 5 p.m. Sunday at Little Caesars Arena.

•••

Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect player scoring Columbus’ empty-net goal.

Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .

Categories: Sports | Penguins
TribLIVE commenting policy

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.