Penguins slip past Hurricanes, 3-1
Sullivan did not identify the nature of Daley’s problem, but said, “We’re hopeful that it won’t be anything significant.”
The Penguins already were missing defensemen Justin Schultz (concussion) and Olli Maatta (hand), who were injured a week ago against the Winnipeg Jets.
“Unfortunately, we’re somewhat used to [being short-handed on defense] these days,” defenseman Ian Cole said.
Although call-ups from their minor league team in Wilkes-Barre such as Steve Oleksy, Chad Ruhwedel and Cameron Gaunce have been adequate fill-ins on the blue line, the Penguins are going to run out of capable bodies eventually if the run of injuries to their defensemen persists.
“[Having players injured] is the nature of our business,” Sullivan said. “Fortunately, we have some depth. We have guys who have stepped in and done an admirable job.”
That’s more than could be said for many of their teammates in the first two periods.
Oh, goalie Matt Murray was consistently strong — he finished with 29 saves — but the Penguins hobbled themselves with a few selfinflicted wounds after Scott Wilson had given them a 1-0 lead at 2:15 of the first.
Precisely 93 seconds later, Penguins center Evgeni Malkin was penalized for hooking. Twentyone seconds after the Penguins killed that minor, Malkin earned a return trip to the penalty box.
That led to Carolina’s only goal, as Jeff Skinner beat Murray from in front nine seconds before Malkin was due to return.
And those weren’t the Penguins’ only infractions of the period because Crosby was called for tripping at 16:37.
The Penguins survived those two minutes — as well as penalties by Malkin and Crosby in the second — but being short-handed so much prevented them from getting into a rhythm with their personnel.
“We took ourselves out of the game with some of the penalties we took,” Sullivan said. “It’s hard to get into the flow and get people on the ice when you take three penalties in the first period.”
Nonetheless, Crosby and Malkin would earn a measure of redemption by scoring the Penguins’ second and third goals, respectively.
“Those guys are clutch for us all the time,” Murray said.
“It doesn’t make a difference whether they take penalties or not.”
Once they regained the lead, the Penguins got their game back in order, limiting the Hurricanes to six shots in the final period.
“I thought we had a really good third,” Crosby said. “But it was an uphill climb.”