A reminder: You can’t win them all
We tend to make sports too complicated at times. When a Pittsburgh team loses, there has to be a reason. Somebody has to be blamed, right? But sometimes, the other team just has a better game. It happens in pro sports. The opponent has highly paid stars, too.
So it went for the Penguins Saturday afternoon in a 7-5 loss to a Boston Bruins team that was desperate, embarrassed and motivated after losing to the Penguins on home ice Thursday night.
All of the Boston stars showed up and produced
after being called out by coach Bruce Cassidy after the lopsided 4-1 loss to the Penguins in the previous game. The six highest-paid players combined for the seven goals and 14 points. Annoying pest Brad Marchand led the way with a hat trick and a 4-point game.
“It definitely stings,” Cody Ceci said of the loss, which endedthe Penguins’ five game,all-in-regulation winning streak and slowed what hadbeen their 11-2-1 run.
Not surprisingly, the Penguins were in no mood to give the Bruins much credit. They blamed themselves for giving Marchand and Co. too many prime scoring chances. The Penguins hadn’t allowed seven goals since a 7-3 loss to Vegas in January 2019. They hadn’t allowed more than three goals in any of their previous 15 games.
The Bruins got five goals inthe second period. They scored two in the first 45 seconds to take a 2-1 lead, then added three more after goals from Jake Guentzel and Jared McCann had put the Penguins back on top, 3-2. The killer was the final one of the five, Marchand getting it
with just :19.9 left to stretch the Boston lead to 5-3.
“Wejust weren’t getting to sticks,” Ceci said. “Guys were getting away from us. Wewere just losing our man in front of the net. That’s where a lot of their goals came from. You can’t give up that many chances from the slot.”
Mark Jankowski didn’t waste words.
“We’ve got to be harder at our net front.”
Mike Sullivan elaborated abit more.
“I think it just boils down to details. Some of the details got away from us. Especially in the second period. Mostly in the second period. That’s why we gave up the types of chances that we gave up. We can play the game a whole lot smarter with a whole lot more attention to detail.”
Sullivan wouldn’t evaluate Casey DeSmith’s performance. DeSmith had stopped 187 of 193 shots in his previous seven games, a .969 save percentage. The Bruins rang up six goals against him with their final goal an emptynetter from Marchand.
“I do think the quality of the chances they scored on were high quality,” Sullivan said.
Give the Bruins a little credit for earning those chances. Marchand is a really good player. So is David Pastrnak, who had two goals and an assist, and Charlie McAvoy, who had three assists.
“We’re playing against a good hockey team,” Sullivan said.
The better hockey team on this day.
“I think it just boils down to details. Some of the details got away from us. Especially in the second period. Mostly in the second period. That’s why we gave up the types of chances that we gave up.”
— Mike Sullivan