Defense springs a leak
Bruins score five in second period
From one of the NHL’s most-porous teams to one of the stingiest.
The Penguins transformed themselves over the past month with a recipe that included two dependable netminders, an emphasis on protecting the scoring area and smart puck decisions. From the beginning of March through the first game of April, they allowed just 1.76 goals per game.
Then, Saturday’s second period happened.
In a 7-5 Bruins victory at TD Garden, Boston blitzed the Penguins with five second-period goals to snap Pittsburgh’s five-game winning streak. It was the most goals the Penguins have allowed in game all season.
Though Boston split up its so-called “Perfection Line,” that trio had its fingerprints all over the game. Brad Marchand netted his fourth career hat trick. David Pastrnak scored twice. The man who typically centers them, Patrice Bergeron, added a goal.
“I thought we competed hard most of the night,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “But we can play the game a whole lot smarter with a whole lot more attention to detail. When you get away from it, those are the types of chances you give up.”
Backup goalie Casey DeSmith has been invaluable for the Penguins this season. He recently had surged into first place on the NHL leader board for save percentage after allowing just one goal on Thursday night. With Tristan Jarry still out with an injury, DeSmith earned his second consecutive start. He stopped just 21 of 27 shots in the loss.
The six goals he allowed — the Bruins scored an empty-netter — were a mixed bag. Any time a goaltender gives up more than three goals, he probably has not played his best game. But neither did the skaters in front of DeSmith.
Of those six goals, five came from the slot or the area veryclose to it. The other goal was another Grade-A chance ona two-on-one.
“We just weren’t getting to sticks. Guys were getting away from us or we were just losing our man in front of the net,” defenseman Cody Ceci said. “You can’t give up that many chances from the slot.”
The first period played out much like the previous three in Boston, with tightchecking and a Penguins lead.
Fourth-line center Mark Jankowski won a faceoff and then took his 6-foot-4 frame to the front of the net to redirect Mike Matheson’s shot. It marked Jankowski’s first goal with a netminder in the crease since the first game of the season.
But momentum would seesaw in both directions din a wild second period that featured seven goals, six penalties, three lead changes and a few heated scrums.
“That’s kind of where the game got away from us,” Jankowski said.
The tone for the middle 20 minutes was set when Boston scored twice within the first 45 seconds to take a 2-1 lead. Patrice Burgeron and David Pastrnak each scored in the early moments. In both instances, the Bruins won battles on the forecheck and then scored on high-danger chances not far from the crease.
The Penguins responded with two goals. From below the goal line, Sidney Crosby found Jake Guentzel in a soft spot in the slot.
Then, the Penguins reclaimed the lead, 3-2, by using speed off the rush to expose the NHL’s best penalty kill. Crosby raced through the neutral zone with speed. He backhanded the puck to Guentzel, who made a nifty play to lift the defender’s stick and then pass the puck to Jared McCann. He ripped
it past Jaroslav Halak for the Penguins’ sixth power play goal in the last five games.
But a period that began with two quick Bruins goals ended with three more from the home team. Brad Marchand netted two goals that book-ended David Krejci’s power-play tally. Boston went into the dressing room with a 5-3 lead.
“I loved the compete we had to come back and try to get back in the game in the third,” Guentzel said. “Just that second period really hurt us.”
Less than five minutes into the third, Ceci cut the Bruins lead to 5-4. He capitalized on a pretty assist from Jankowski.
But with the Penguins pressing for the tying goal, Matheson was carrying the puck through the neutral zone when Boston’s Nick Ritchie created a turnover in the neutral zone. It created a 2-on-1 that Pastrnak converted into his second goal of the game. The tally gave the Bruins a 6-4 lead and, aside from some lategame craziness, effectively ended the Penguins’ chances.
“I like to use the phrase ‘mistakes of enthusiasm,’” Sullivan said. “We’re trying to do the right thing. Sometimes, we’re trying to do a little bit too much and we get ourselves in trouble. We’ve got to make sure that we keep the game simple in certain circumstances so we don’t leave ourselves vulnerable to a transition game or a turnover where we don’t have the ability to recover, where we don’t have any kind of defensive posture behind us.”
With DeSmith pulled for an extra attacker, the Penguins made it interesting with a late, short-handed tally from Crosby to briefly trim the Boston lead to one. But Marchand swished the empty-netter to seal it.
The Penguins will return home before heading back on the road to begin a fourgame trip against the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils. The puck drops at 7 p.m. Tuesday against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
“We tried to battle back the best we could, which I think shows a lot about our group,” Ceci said. “It wasn’t going our way and we did fight back. We’ve just got to tighten it up defensively and just focus on the next couple games.”