Before Tuesday's game against the Capitals at PPG Paints Arena, Mike Sullivan was asked about Washington's power play, which at the time had the No. 1 success rate in the league.
"It's always a challenge when we play Washington, trying to keep their power play off the scoresheet," he said. "I think the biggest part of it is we've got to do a better job at staying out of the penalty box. I think our team discipline has to be better than it was in the previous game so we don't give that power play too many opportunities to be the difference."
The good: The Penguins managed to keep the Capitals' power play off the scoresheet on Tuesday, going five-for-five.
The bad: The Penguins were even more undisciplined than they were in Sunday's game.
The parade to the penalty box killed any momentum or rhythm the Penguins may have otherwise had, and they fell to the Capitals, 3-1.
Both teams were pretty evenly matched after the first 20 minutes, and the game remained scoreless at first intermission with the Capitals having a slight edge in shots at 15-13.
Any momentum the Penguins may have carried into the second period was zapped by the four penalties taken in the middle frame, which were so perfectly spaced out throughout the period that the Penguins weren't able to ever develop a rhythm.
Jake Guentzel took the Penguins' first penalty of the game, a holding call just 13 seconds into the middle frame. Evgeni Malkin got hit with a tripping call at 4:54, and P.O Joseph was called for high-sticking at 9:12. Mike Matheson's goaltender interference infraction at 18:16 ensured that the Penguins finished the period down a man.
"It felt like the whole second period, we were short-handed," said Teddy Blueger. "We'd kill one off and then a couple of shifts later, get another one."
The Penguins were outshot by a massive 18-5 margin in the second period, including 10-1 while on the penalty kill. The Capitals didn't score on any of their power plays, but took a 2-0 lead off of a Conor Sheary goal sandwiched between the first two penalties and a Jakub Vrana goal between the last two.
"They kept playing offense shift, after shift, after shift," Blueger said. "It was tough for us to generate offense or sustain pressure."
The penalty kill did its job, but the steady stream of penalties made it so the ice was tilted in Washington's favor throughout the period. Even when the Penguins were back to even strength, the personnel combinations were often disjointed due to the penalty-killing responsibilities, and icetime distribution was far from that of a typical game.
The second-period shift chart illustrates the disruption in the flow:
The third line was rarely intact for a shift, and the fourth line barely saw the ice at all. Defense pairings got separated.
"When you have to (kill penalties) so many in a row, not everybody kills," said Marcus Pettersson. "A lot of the guys get out of the game a little bit."
I asked Zach Aston-Reese after the game what those penalties did to the flow of the game.
"It's really tough," he said. "We like to roll lines and get everybody involved, with my line and (Mark Jankowski's) line trying to provide energy. When you have to shorten the bench and spend eight minutes on the kill, it takes the top guys off their game, out of their groove a little bit. It is what it is. It happened, and we've just got to turn the page from that."
Matheson's second-period penalty carried over into the third period, and Lars Eller extended the Capitals' lead less than a minute after Matheson was freed from the box.
The Penguins fared better in the third period -- they matched the Capitals in shots at nine apiece, Aston-Reese broke Vitek Vanacek's shutout late in the third, and Joseph's interference penalty at 6:57 was their only infraction in the third period -- but the deficit they found themselves in after the tough second period was too much to overcome.
"We just didn't really recover from (the second period)," said Blueger.
"I think we self-inflicted there," Sullivan said. "It's tough, we took four penalties, eight of the 20 minutes were in the penalty box. Almost half the period we were killing penalties. It just takes guys out of the game. It takes guys out of the flow. It gets tough against a power play as good as Washington's is to try to defend that. It gives Washington momentum, even when they don't score. We certainly didn't help ourselves in the second period with the amount of penalties that we took."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Aston-Reese's goal gives him three goals in three games to start the season. It's the first three-game goal streak of his career, and only his second of at least two games.
"I'm not surprised," Sullivan said of Aston-Reese's play since returning from injury. "Zach's a good player. He's a smart, conscientious, 200-foot player. He has the ability to score goals. He scored goals at every level with the exception of the NHL. Unfortunately for Zach, he's had a couple of seasons where injuries have gotten in his way at inopportune times for his sake and for our sake. But we do think he's a capable two-way player. I think he's showing that right now."
"He's been strong physically," Blueger said of his linemate. "He's hard on pucks, he works extremely hard, good around the net, puck protection, obviously has a good shot. I think all of those things are coming together, the success he's having is very well-deserved. I'm sure he'll keep it going for us."
Aston-Reese previously mentioned that his shoulder injury that necessitated surgery dated back to his first season in the league, and that his shoulder feels better than ever after finally getting it repaired. Has that been the difference?
"Having to get surgery made me take a step back and think of why I'm always getting injured, and what I can change," he said. "I did change a few off-ice habits, I cleaned up my diet, just added some different things to training and taking care of my body. A bunch of little things, but they all add up. I think it's starting to show now."
• Marcus Pettersson played his first game in nearly a month, recovering from his upper-body injury. He played on the third pairing with Cody Ceci and recorded the lowest ice time of any defenseman at 14:19, which included 3:31 on the penalty kill.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Highlights
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Richard Panik, Capitals
2. Vitek Vanacek, Capitals
3. Nic Dowd, Capitals
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Zach Trotman underwent right knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus on Jan. 14 and is expected to be out 4-6 weeks
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola is out "longer term" with an upper-body injury sustained on Jan. 19
• Forward Evan Rodrigues is out "longer term" with a lower-body injury sustained Jan. 25.
• Defenseman Brian Dumoulin is out "week-to-week" with a lower-body injury sustained Jan. 26.
• Forward Jared McCann is out "week to week" with a lower-body injury sustained Feb. 6.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Colton Sceviour-Mark Jankowski-Sam Lafferty
P.O Joseph-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-John Marino
Marcus Pettersson-Cody Ceci
And for Peter Laviolette's Capitals:
Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-T.J.Oshie
Jakub Vrana-Nicklas Backstrom-Tom Wilson
Conor Sheary-Lars Eller-Richard Panik
Carl Hagelin-Nic Dowd-Garnet Hathaway
Brenden Dillon-John Carlson
Zdeno Chara-Justin Schultz
Dmitry Orlov-Nick Jensen
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins have a scheduled day off on Wednesday. They'll play the Islanders on Thursday evening.
THE CONTENT
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