UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- It was not the Penguins' only mistake in this game.
Not even close.
And maybe, just maybe, it wasn't even their most egregious.
Maybe.
But it's tough to dispute that delay-of-game minor Teddy Blueger picked up when he sailed a puck over the glass with 3:45 left in regulation was their most costly error of the evening.
After all, it created the power play that generated the game-deciding goal in the New York Islanders' 4-3 victory at Nassau Coliseum Saturday night.
And that goal cost the Penguins more than just one point, and possibly two, in the East Division playoff race.
It also denied them an opportunity to fully enjoy some aspects of their performance that not only were welcome in the short term, but which could portend well for the games to come.
Like how Evgeni Malkin scored his first even-strength goal of 2020-21, raising the total of those for which he and Sidney Crosby have combined through the first 11 games to, uh, one:
How Tristan Jarry, who avoided being contacted by pucks so often during the early weeks of the season that there was a suspicion that he was allergic to vulcanized rubber, made a series of quality stops in the second period, when another New York goal might have all but put the game out of reach.
How rookie defenseman P.O Joseph punctuated yet another strong performance by scoring his first NHL goal:
How the Penguins managed to transform a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead against a team built on stingy team defense.
How they finally made it through a game without sputtering through a single power play. (OK, that probably was because they weren't awarded one, but 0-for-0 is better than their 0-for-19 run in the previous five games.)
"I thought there were a lot of positives to take from it," Mike Sullivan said. "I thought, for the most part, our five-on-five play was pretty strong. I thought we got better as the game went on. I thought we controlled a lot of the third period. We fought back from a deficit. There was a lot to like about our overall game."
Of course, all of those plusses were offset by some grievous letdowns and breakdowns.
The way Kris Letang ended up behind the goal line with his defense partner, Joseph, when Cal Clutterbuck punched the tying goal past Jarry from in front of the net at 8:23 of the third period.
How Jordan Eberle was left unchecked in front of the net at 15:45 of the opening period, allowing him to convert a Brock Nelson rebound for a 2-1 lead.
Drew O'Connor's turnover at the New York blue line that triggered a sequence which culminated in Eberle throwing. backhander past Jarry to open the scoring.
And, of course, Blueger's unforced error in the left-wing corner of his end as regulation was winding down that led to Anders Lee swatting in a loose puck at 17:16 of the third to give New York its margin of victory.
But while Lee's goal won the game, it was Clutterbuck's that got the Islanders back into it.
The Penguins held a 3-2 lead and were largely controlling play when Letang and Joseph, paired for the first time, both ended up behind the goal line, which left Clutterbuck alone in front before he knocked a Casey Cizikas feed into the net.
Perhaps it was simply a matter of miscommunication. Maybe Letang was guilty of making a bad read, or of trying to do extra to help a young partner. Possibly both.
The only certainty is that Clutterbuck's goal altered the course of the game, which ended with New York pulling out of a 0-3-2 skid.
"If (Letang) stops in front (of the net), it's probably a nothing play," Sullivan said. "But things happen fast out there."
Malkin's goal was evidence of that.
As second period was winding down, he forced a turnover at the New York blue line, knocking the puck to linemate Kasperi Kapanen, who fed it back to him before Malkin threw a shot over goalie Semyon Varlamov's glove from inside the left circle with 15.2 seconds to go before the intermission.
It was just Malkin's second goal of the season.
"I think he's looking to try to shoot the puck more," Sullivan said. "We're trying to encourage him to put more pucks on the net."
Their thinking, of course, is that the more pucks Malkin puts on the net, the more pucks will end up in it.
Malkin's goal tied the game, 2-2, and Jake Guentzel put the Penguins in front for the only time all night when he scored at 3:19 of the third:
That gave the Penguins, who already had bumped up their level of play, an additional boost that didn't wane until Clutterbuck scored.
"We felt pretty good about our game, until it got away from us at the end," Mike Matheson said.
Of course, how games end is all that matters, and the result of this one dropped the Penguins' record to 5-5-1, making them one of four East Division teams with a .500 record. Which means that, based on winning percentage, they are tied for fifth place.
Also, last place, since the other four clubs have winning records.
The Penguins, though, insist that they do not dwell on where they sit in the standings, even though they recognize the obvious importance of accumulating as many points as possible
"I don't spend too much time looking at that kind of stuff," Matheson said. "If you're down in the standings, it's just going to get you down and feel like you don't have a chance. And if you're up in the standings, the only thing it could lead to is to give you a feeling like, 'Oh, this (other) team is wherever they are in the standings, that must mean that we should lose or we should win, or whatever the case may be.
"At the end of the day, we come into every game with a clean slate and with a focus on winning that game."
Approaching it any other way would probably be a mistake. And the Penguins already have shown that they can make more than enough of those.
• Guentzel was the only member of his line, which includes Crosby and Bryan Rust, to get a goal, but the three of them combined for 14 shots, eight of them by Rust. "I thought we had a good night," Guentzel said. "I felt like we had the puck a lot, and we were able to create some great chances."
• Matheson, who had been injured in the second game of the season, logged 20 minutes, 33 seconds of ice time in his comeback game. He struggled early, but elevated his play as the game went along. "I thought it got better as the game went on," he said. "It felt like, in the first half of the game, the puck was kind of bouncing everywhere and I wasn't seeing the game as well as I'd like to. I felt like the second half, I kind of settled in and started making smarter plays with the puck and getting into the rush and defending a little better."
• Guentzel described Joseph's goal as the product of a "goal-scorer's shot." Joseph said simply that, "it would have been better with two points at the end of the game."
• Crosby was the only Penguins player to have a winning night on faceoffs, going 8-7.
• Eberle had scored just once in the previous five games before getting two in the opening period.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Highlights
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Nassau Coliseum:
1. Jordan Eberle, Islanders
2. Michael Dal Colle, Islanders
3. Anders Lee, Islanders
THE INJURIES
• Forward Zach-Aston Reese is still recovering from surgery on his left shoulder in August and is day-to-day.
• Defenseman Zach Trotman underwent right knee surgery Jan. 14 to repair a torn meniscus and is expected to be out 4-6 weeks.
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola is out "longer term" with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained Jan. 19.
• Defenseman Marcus Pettersson is "week to week" with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained Jan. 19.
• Defenseman Brian Dumoulin is "week to week" with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained on Jan. 27.
• Forward Jared McCann is being evaluated for a lower-body injury sustained Saturday.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Jared McCann-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Drew O'Connor-Mark Jankowski-Sam Lafferty
P.O Joseph-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-John Marino
Chad Ruhwedel-Cody Ceci
And for Barry Trotz's Islanders:
Anders Lee-Mat Barzal-Josh Bailey
Michael Dal Colle-Brock Nelson-Jordan Eberle
Leo Komarov-Jean-Gabriel Pageau-Oliver Wahlstrom
Matt Martin-Casey Cizikas-Cal Clutterbuck
Adam Pelech-Ryan Pulock
Nick Leddy-Scott Mayfield
Andy Greene-Noah Dobson
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to have a day off Sunday. Because their game in New Jersey Tuesday has been postponed, they will not play again until they return to Nassau Coliseum Thursday at 7:08 p.m.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
