Pregame
The Penguins go with the same lineup as last game with a change in goalies back to Arturs Silovs.
The visiting Ottawa Senators get some good news in the form of Thomas Chabot (game-time decision) is able to dress for this game.
First period
Thought the Penguins were cutting corners and falling into some bad habits early. One example early was Ryan Shea in the opening minute attempting to go up the wall to a covered players. It got picked off and a nice Ottawa passing play nearly led to a goal (and probably should have if the placement was elevated to where it should have been). They got away with it, thanks to the play of Silovs in the first 5-10 minutes, following some cross-ice passes and good looks by the Senators after the Pens either flew the zone or just weren’t quite as connected with their positioning and/or decision making with the puck.
The Pens’ style pays off when Parker Wotherspoon is able to make one of those long passes up to Evgeni Malkin. Malkin puts a centering pass in an area with Egor Chinakhov can take one touch and shoot. When Chinakhov shoots, he shoots hard. This one low past Linus Ullmark, 1-0 Pens.
Rickard Rakell sideswipes Ullmark to take a goalie interference penalty in another avoidable little moment of not quite being super-sharp. The hot Pittsburgh PK kills it off.
Ilya Solovyov is the next to go to the penalty box for getting a stick up, another kill for the Penguins.
First period comes to a close, Ottawa is up 13-7 in shots, Pittsburgh carries a 1-0 lead where it counts. More in the thoughts section, didn’t like this start for the Pens. Silovs was very good and they’re fortunate to be ahead at this point.
Second period
The sloppy play continues, Malkin fumbles a puck in front of his net and hands it over to Michael Amadio. Amadio quickly puts the puck glove side on Silovs and in. 1-1 game.
Still not going well, Shea coughing the puck up leads to Parker Wotherspoon cross-checking a guy. The refs call it to send Ottawa to their third power play of the night. Another kill, though the Sens are getting more and more zone time and opportunities.
Lines have changed, Anthony Mantha joins the Crosby/Rakell group, Justin Brazeau goes to play with Kindel/McGroatry. The Penguins finally get their first shot of the period with just over nine minutes to go.
Solovyov breaks his stick and fails to clear the zone in the last minute, then Connor Clifton takes another cross-checking penalty for Ottawa’s fourth power play in the game, compared to the zero for the Penguins. The buzzer sounds before too much can happen.
It’s been a sludge for the Penguins tonight. Only three shots on goal in the second period and just 10 for the game. It’s a tie game after 40 minutes.
Third period
The Pens deal with the 91 seconds of carryover power play time. It takes until 13:14 remaining for Ottawa to take the lead. Shea fails to get the puck deep and turns the puck over at the far blueline while the Pens are changing behind him. That gives Drake Batherson a clean breakaway, Silovs makes the first stop, the rebound is sitting right there for the second player on the scene to get to. Turns out it’s Tim Stutzle. 2-1 Ottawa.
The Pens finally find a response on the rare chance to get a puck to the net. It’s Shea again (he’s everywhere) taking a shot that hits off Tommy Novak in the crease. Novak is able to find the loose puck and tap it into the net. 2-2 game with 11:12 to go.
It takes until 9:09 left in the game for Pittsburgh to get their first power play of the night. The big group stays out the whole time without scoring.
Claude Giroux splits the defense, Erik Karlsson has to hack at him. That causes Giroux to fall and crash into Silovs and the net, the puck goes in during the continuation of play. It takes a long review and it’s ruled a good goal for the puck over the line before the net was off.
That explanation isn’t good enough for Dan Muse, so he challenges the play for goalie interference. Questionable at best considering the contact was clearly initiated by Karlsson. Challenge denied and the Pens get a penalty and a goal against out of the deal anyways.
Pittsburgh kills off the punishment penalty, Silovs is pulled with over 2 minutes to go to get to 6v5 grind time. About halfway through the timeout is used to give the top players a breather. Doesn’t work, time runs out on the comeback effort.
Some thoughts
- From the first period area, didn’t like the way the Penguins started this game. It was nice they scored first, the style was eye-catching. The players didn’t look as connected as they usually do to start breakouts in close support. They’re trying to stretch the ice more. It’s impossible to be sharp and have the details down every night, though I think we saw some of this against the Rangers too where some bad habits are starting to creep in. Once a team experiences success or gets on a winning streak it can be difficult to keep all those little details buttoned up. It’s a long stretch of hockey too, there’s no such thing as perfection but it can be alarming to see some of the finer points of their game erode away.
- Then again, it still means something to take advantage of those mistakes. Ottawa made one in the first period when Nick Jensen played too wide and let Chinakhov get inside of him. Didn’t take long for the puck to get on and off his stick and in the net.
- You can see why Ottawa is first in the league in 5v5 xGA and third best overall in fewest shots allowed per game. They hound opponents all over the ice, grinding them down and making everything earned then jump on turnovers and get right back on the attack. Not a lot of room out there against them.
- Ryan Shea was all over the place tonight. At one point he even skated the puck aggressive while shorthanded when he realized it was a forward in Dylan Cozens back playing defense. Some good moments, some not so good.
- Kinda crazy how the Pens just can’t draw a power play for the most part these days with just 19 power plays in the last eight games. They can’t complain too much, they barely had the puck enough and were chasing Ottawa around for most of the night, tough to get a call like that.
- We’ve had some Dan Muse headscratchers when it comes to challenging very questionable goalie interference penalties, this was another one. There was no universe where the refs where going to rule Giroux interfered with Silovs. Did the Penguins want the play to be a penalty on Karlsson and no goal? I don’t even think that’s possible. Not sure if Muse is being fed bad information by the video team or just out of tune with how NHL referees are going to rule on these types of plays, he’s now 0-5 in goalie interference challenges. Muse has made several calls where the chance of getting the call to go his way was going to be an extreme longshot. This review being the most questionable of them all so far. These things can happen with a rookie coach, though at this point of the season almost four months and 55 games in it would be nice to see smarter coaching inputs happening there.
- Bad game by the big guys, as it was for just about everyone besides Silovs. Malkin was turning pucks over, he did create a goal but his decision making was spotty all night. Crosby didn’t have so much as one shot attempt (let alone one on goal) and was forcing cross-ice passes in the last minute when it appeared he had a shooting lane — a telltale sign for the rare times that he is fighting things and mired a slump. Rakell wasn’t much more noticeable. Probably a good thing that Bryan Rust can play tomorrow back from his suspension, his presence will be needed.
Can’t win ‘em all, the Ottawa Senators have always been a tough matchup for the Pens, that continued again tonight. Pittsburgh was tied late but had difficulties all night in looking sharp and couldn’t find a way to win a seventh straight game. No shame in that, though they will need to put this one in the rearview mirror quickly with a matchup against the division-rival Islanders tomorrow night.
