Penguins Surrender Three Unanswered Goals In Third, Fall To Avs, 6-2

Following one of their best efforts of the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Penguins hoped to carry that momentum into their Tuesday matchup with the Colorado Avalanche.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.

The Avalanche beat the Penguins, 6-2, thanks to fantastic performances by Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, and goaltender Scott Wedgewood. Rantanen recorded a hat trick, MacKinnon had five points, and Wedgewood stopped 25 of 27 Penguin shots.

Pittsburgh got goals from Cody Glass – his first as a Penguin – and Michael Bunting, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the starpower of Colorado’s best players.

“They’re overall really good players, you know?” defenseman Kris Letang said. “MacKinnon has the speed, the skill, the shot. Rantanen has a big presence. He’s really good around the net. It’s tough to knock them off the puck. And then you add [Cale] Makar. He’s probably one of the top players in the game right now. He just makes the other team look silly.”

Glass thought the Penguins had plenty of opportunities to take over the game, but they were just unable to capitalize. He thought there was still a lot of good to take from the game and stressed that they can’t get discouraged.

“I think we did some good things,” Glass said. “You have to give them credit. They’re a really good hockey team over there. But at the end of the day, we were right there. We had good power plays, we could have had a lot of momentum on our side. We had some big PKs in the second period. That’s how it goes sometimes. Some games we get those goals, and sometimes we don’t. So, we just got to keep our heads up. Keep pushing forward. We’re really close to being 500.”

Here are some thoughts and observations from tonight’s loss:

– I thought the Penguins looked a little lifeless to start this game. They didn’t exactly come flying out of the gate in the first period, and Colorado went up 2-0 in the first as a result.

Slow starts have been a bit of a trend for them as of late. They need to put their foot on the gas a bit sooner.

– This note is a short one, but Rantanen and MacKinnon are very, very good hockey players. They were noticeable all night. Rantanen had the hatty, and MacKinnon had those five points.

Phenomenal stuff from them both.

– As it did in the game against the Rangers on Friday, the Penguins’ power play really let them down against Colorado.

It went 0-4 and looked a mess all night. When they did establish zone time, they passed up several opportunities to shoot (Kevin Hayes passed up two in a row on a second-period power play).

Defenseman Matt Grzelcyk offered some really good insight on the power play’s struggles on Tuesday:

He added: “Once we got in, I thought we were alright. But, it kind of started with our breakouts. We were having a tough time getting in. They were very stingy. Then, we weren’t really dumping pucks to try to get them back. Sometimes, it’s not always comfortable on the power play. You want to carry it in, but we’ve got to recognize that a little bit sooner as players, and just have a forecheck mentality there… place pucks and try to get them back on the forecheck.”

I feel like he gave a pretty comprehensive explanation that was very accurate. I imagine they’ll work on the power play in practice on Wednesday, and I’m curious to see if they make any changes to the units.

– The Penguins’ power play certainly did not do them any favors through the first 40 minutes of play.

But the guy surrounding a lot of the special teams madness – Bunting – sure did.

It’s been said before by many – including Sullivan – and I’ll reiterate: Bunting is at his best when he’s engaged in this way. When he’s driving the net. When he’s engaged physically. When he’s annoying everyone.

He took a (ticky-tacky) tripping penalty in the second half of the middle frame, and then he immediately came out and drew a high-sticking penalty in a scuffle with Colorado’s Sam Malinski near the end of the period. The Penguins didn’t score on the power play, but they had some o-zone momentum in the waning seconds – and Bunting scored shortly after the penalty ended to bring the Penguins within one on an unreal feed from Erik Karlsson:

He needs to embrace the pest he is. He’s easily playing his best hockey of the season right now, and he’s delivering in big moments for the Penguins. He gave Pittsburgh a really good shot to come all the way back in this game.

– Unfortunately, that “big moment” was short-lived, as the Penguins gave up three unanswered foals to Colorado in the final frame.

The first goal came just 3:23 into the third period, as Valeri Nichushkin completely walked Marcus Pettersson on his way to a goal that saw him sweep across the goal crease. The Penguins still had life after that but failed to convert on a power play opportunity just a few minutes later, and the Avs answered their kill with an Artturi Lehkonen goal.

Rantanen added an empty-netter with just under five minutes remaining to seal the win and earn his league-leading third hat trick of the season.

I also asked Grzelcyk about something Sullivan has mentioned on several occasions, which is the Penguins ability to handle momentum swings, especially when they don’t fall in their favor.

“Not ideal with them scoring there early, but it kind of took the wind out of our sails a bit,” Grzelcyk said. “I thought we came back because we were forechecking well and forcing them to make turnovers. We kind of got away from that and tried to carry pucks in through the neutral zone. We just kind of slowed it down a little bit.”

The Penguins need to simplify their game and get to the forecheck when they have momentum – but they also need to do that when things don’t go their way. They need to find ways to take momentum back.

To be fair, they’ve been doing a much better job in that department. But it’s an “old habit” they’ll certainly want to avoid getting back into.

– Glass scored his first goal as a Penguin tonight, and it happened as a result of a nice wall play by Kris Letang, who was able to feed the puck to Evgeni Malkin. Malkin slid over a perfect pass to Glass in the right circle, and he fired one past Scott Wedgewood.

That was a well-earned goal by Glass. He’s generated a lot of chances this season and has a shoot-first mentality, and it was good to see that finally pay off for him.

As a side note, I like Glass on that second line with Malkin and Philip Tomasino. He played with them in the latter part of the first period and during the second period in favor of Drew O’Connor before Michael Bunting was bumped back up with 71.

I understand the want to reward guys for playing well, but if I’m Sullivan, I never would have touched that third line of Bunting, Blake Lizotte, and Anthony Beauvillier. By the end of this one, they were all skating on separate lines.

I’d like to see Glass, Malkin, and Tomasino get a more extended look.

– With his assist on Bunting’s goal, Karlsson tied Bobby Orr for 13th all-time in assists by a defenseman at 645.

That is quite the accomplishment, and what a way to do it. Congrats to Karlsson.

– Sidney Crosby has not scored a goal since his 600th career tally against Utah on Nov. 23. And he has just eight goals and 27 points in 30 games this season.

Look, these aren’t anywhere close to bad numbers. But Crosby has also been shooting the puck a lot less. He registered only two shots on Tuesday and has only 17 total shots in his last seven games, which is just under 2.5 shots per game.

This is an unusually low total for him. Crosby himself admitted he’s not at his best right now in terms of goal-scoring – and I don’t think the streaky production and uneven play of wingers Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell is doing him any favors – but he looks a bit off right now.

When asked about his goal-scoring slump, he was blunt.

“I don’t think I’ve forgotten how to (score goals),” Crosby said. “But, I definitely have to find ways to either get shots through or get around the net a little bit more. That’s on me to find the net.”

The Penguins – and Crosby – need him to find his game again soon. To me, his reads look a bit slow this season at times. I just think he’s going through one of those funks where plays aren’t materializing and bounces aren’t going his way.

But he is the heartbeat of this team, so I’m sure he will figure things out.