No gas left in the tank
Nothing goes well as weary Penguins execute poorly in shutout loss
PHILADELPHIA — Penguins coach Mike Sullivan carries himself with a certain swagger. His passion for the game and fiery competitiveness smolders just below the surface, clearly evident in even the most relaxed pregame settings.
But Tuesday night, after the Penguins were blanked, 3-0, in Philadelphia, the tectonic plates shifted below the surface and lava bubbled to the surface. Plenty of words can be used to describe this one. But the coach summed it up best.
“There was a lack of execution,” Sullivan said. “Lack of attention to detail. No sense of urgency. No cooperative play. You can’t play that way in the league and expect to win.”
Ouch. Tough analysis. But honest.
Against what was supposed to be a heated, in-state rival that is floundering in sixth in the Metropolitan Division, the Penguins looked flat and tired. They
managed just 19 shots to give Flyers goalie Brian Elliott an easy shutout win. Meanwhile, goalie Tristan Jarry was left out to dry on several occasions, including when he was asked to make five high-danger saves in the first period alone.
“Tonight, we were easy to play against,” Sullivan continued. “We didn’t chip bodies, finish checks. We didn’t make great decisions with the puck. We didn’t execute when we had it.”
Finally, Sullivan provided the most direct evaluation of the game by saying, “There’s nothing positive that I can draw on from this game. It was disappointing.”
In the coming days, Jarry will make the trek to St. Louis to play in his first All-Star Game. But even an All-Star-caliber effort would not have been enough to help the Penguins steal a win during the last game before the break.
He made 27 saves on 29 attempts, several of them stellar. A pair of second-period goals and an emptynetter, however, sent the Penguins to the break with a loss.
Philadelphia eventually took a 1-0 lead with 14:34 left in the second. Sean Couturier skillfully knifed a pass through the Penguins defense to find Jakub Voracek, who beat Jarry on the backhand. Then, in the closing minutes of the second period, the Flyers took a 2-0 lead. James Van Riemsdyk received a pass in the slot from Travis Konecny. He tapped it through the five hole easily on a bang-bang play.
“They were quick,” Jarry said. “Two good plays. Both of them came quick and both of them drove the net hard. It was just a matter of stopping or not stopping them.”
The Penguins have been one of the NHL’s best comeback teams in the league. Seven times, they have entered the third period trailing and earned a win anyway, including Sunday afternoon when they beat visiting Boston, 4-3. Only Dallas (eight) has more third-period comebacks.
Such a comeback attempt Tuesday never left the station.
Looking for a spark, Sullivan played his two star centers — Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin — together on the same line for
several shifts. The decision led to one of the best opportunities of the night, when Crosby found Bryan Rust in front of the net. But his point-blank attempt was turned away.
Not only was that the last good chance. It was the last chance at all.
The Penguins went the final 9:11 without recording a shot on goal before Philadelphia’s Justin Braun added the emptynetter to settle the final score.
“Give some credit to them,” Rust said. “I think they did some good things. But a lot of that is on us. I don’t think we played hard enough. I don’t think we played smart enough.”
The loss wrapped up a stretch of 11 games in 20 days, a grind that has physically and mentally tested the Penguins. For the most part, the Penguins stood tall in the face of the scheduling challenge, going 7-3-1 during the stretch.
But Tuesday, just two days after coming back to beat Boston in one of the most satisfying wins of the season, they looked like a team with tired legs limping to the break.
“We need to be better,” Crosby said. “There’s not much to say. We can make excuses. But we haven’t made excuses all year. We’re not going to start here.”
Though the Penguins (31-14-5) failed to gain ground in the standings during the last game before the break, what they accomplished during the first 50 games of the season is remarkable nonetheless, considering the adversity they’ve been dealt. The list of injured players has been long and significant in the first half.
Yet, despite racking up more than 205 man-games lost to injury, the Penguins enter the break at second place in the Metropolitan
Division.
They trail only the Washington Capitals (3111-5), who have tallied 71 points on the season.
The Penguins will return to action Jan. 31 when they play host to the Flyers at PPG Paints Arena, looking to kick start the final stretch with a better performance.
“For whatever reason, we didn’t have it tonight,” Crosby said. “It’s unfortunate. It’s a big divisional game. It just seemed like they wanted it more. It’s never a good feeling when you finish a game and that’s the feeling you have.”