PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby isn’t wrong. There is a “fine line” between winning and losing in the NHL.
Still, when a team is on the wrong side of that line, as the Pittsburgh Penguins have been since the holiday break, any foundation previously laid can feel flimsy.
That’s how the Penguins’ postseason hopes feel after a lost weekend: flimsy.
Consecutive afternoon losses at PPG Paints Arena — a 5-0 thumping at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Saturday followed by a 5-2 defeat against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday — transformed a homestand that, though it hadn’t started well, was filled with promise. And instead of deriving momentum from a rousing 5-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night, the Penguins failed a couple of passable tests.
“Two different games,” Crosby said Sunday. “(Saturday), we really didn’t give ourselves a chance. (Sunday) I thought we deserved better. But, you know, you don’t get points for playing well. You’ve got to find a way to win games, and we’ve got to do that.”
The Penguins were doing that not too long ago.
A 9-3-1 march from Thanksgiving Eve through the NHL’s Christmas break transformed them from a lottery-bound team into a playoffs contender. But the Penguins are 2-4-3 since that run of success, and they’re 1-4-1 over that span against opponents that are also chasing the Eastern Conference’s wild-card slots.
Three of those opponents delivered damaging blows in a six-day span.
The Columbus Blue Jackets rallied from a two-goal deficit with under 10 minutes remaining in regulation before winning in a shootout this past Tuesday. Then the Senators and Lighting, who were a combined 3-9-2 in recent weeks before facing the Penguins, denied coach Mike Sullivan’s squad even a point with four up for grabs.
Those defeats dropped the Penguins to sixth in the wild-card standings. Their 45 games are at least a couple more than any club in that chase other than the Boston Bruins.
The Penguins are struggling to capitalize on their chances in a recent stretch of play. (Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
And injuries aren’t helping. Evgeni Malkin has not played in a week because of an upper-body injury. He was placed on injured reserve Sunday to accommodate Philip Tomasino’s return to the lineup. Still, Michael Bunting was unavailable because of an automobile accident a few hours before the game against the Lightning.
Sullivan said Bunting was not injured in a crash at the intervention of Washington Place and Centre Avenue outside PPG Paints Arena. He was held out of the game as a precaution.
The Penguins missed him. The team has only four players who have scored at least 10 goals. When one of those players is out — like Bunting, who has 13 goals and six in his last nine games — there is not enough skill throughout the lineup to make good on chances.
There were chances against the Lightning, especially in the opening 20 minutes. The Penguins were dominant, but could only score once — Rickard Rakell’s team-leading 22nd goal — and the Lightning probably felt fortunate to trail only by a goal going into the intermission.
At five-on-five, the Lightning were credited with 18 scoring chances to the Penguins’ 11 over the final 40 minutes, as measured by Natural Stat Trick. But the Penguins managed twice as many high-danger chances, with six.
They couldn’t capitalize. The Lightning did. Nobody said hockey was fair.
Likewise, nobody thought returning to the playoffs after missing out in the last two seasons would prove easy for the Penguins. Few predicted they would be in the mix after a dismal start (7-12-4).
Their 13-game heater between America’s big year-end holidays made if not anything, then at least something feel possible. These past nine games have been the equivalent of a Polar Plunge for the Penguins.
“If you’re looking at wins and losses, it’s a pretty fine line,” Crosby said, who proceeded to replay recent losses.
- 4-2, at Detroit (Dec. 31): “We played a really good game.”
- 3-2, SO, at Florida (Jan. 1): “Outplayed them, lost in the shootout.”
- 4-3, SO, at Carolina (Jan. 5): “We had the lead.”
“And Columbus, we had the lead most of the game, so…” Crosby said. “Obviously, the results haven’t been there, but we’ve given ourselves a chance in a lot of those games to win. It’s a matter of details and big plays. And when you’re stringing seven (wins) together, you’re getting those plays. When you’re not, that’s probably the difference.
“But a lot of those games, coming out of them, we felt like we’re doing a lot of good things. That’s probably the most frustrating thing about it.”
Three observations from this defeat:
Acciari’s inexcusable giveaway
The Lightning’s winning goal was avoidable.
Noel Acciari, a veteran forward on the roster because of his defense, attempted to weave his way through traffic high in the defensive zone. That’s a no-no any time, particularly for a player like Acciari, but especially with a tie late in regulation.
It was a terrible decision, and Acciari recognized it immediately. He needed to make a safer play. He definitely needed to be aware that one of the great offensive players of this generation, Nikita Kucherov, was within the vicinity. To turn over the puck to a scorer of Kucherov’s pedigree is to tempt the hockey gods. That’s never a good idea.
Kucherov’s goal felt anticlimactic after Acciari’s gaffe. It took the life out of the Penguins.
A gaffe by Noel Acciari ended up in the Penguins net thanks to Lightning star Nikita Kucherov. (Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
Woe the goalies
Tristan Jarry started for the first time since Tuesday, and Sullivan said he was “solid.” Faint praise, but a lot better than Sullivan said after Jarry’s previous start.
Jarry stopped 14 of 17 shots. He didn’t give up any terrible goals, but he also didn’t make any big saves.
Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic combined to allow eight goals on 39 shots against the Senators and Lightning. That’s a .795 save percentage — and, well, goaltending of that low a level gives a team no chance.
The duo are each at about .890 in save percentage on the season. Sure, only five teams began Sunday with an overall save percentage at or above .900, but .890 for each of the two veterans is brutal.
Goaltending is killing the Penguins.
Bunting’s accident
I passed the scene at 2:25 p.m. while driving to the media parking area near PPG Paints Arena. There were three police cars, multiple officers and a firetruck. Bunting was standing near a couple of the officers as assistant coach Mike Vellucci approached him. They began talking.
About 20 minutes later, as I walked toward the arena’s media entrance, Penguins president of hockey operations/general manager Kyle Dubas and a few arena staffers walked along Washington Place toward the intersection where the accident had occurred. Bunting and Vellucci were inside the arena by that point.
Debris from the two vehicles was spread throughout the intersection, so for Bunting to walk away without an injury was a stroke of good fortune. He’s probably lucky the game was on the weekend: that intersection is chaotic during rush hour on a weekday.
Scary stuff.
(Top photo of Blake Lizotte and Anthony Cirelli: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
