WASHINGTON -- You can probably narrow the reasons for the Penguins' 5-2 loss to the Capitals on Thursday down to three main ones:
1. A struggling power play.
2. Tom Wilson.
3. Kris Letang's stick manufacturer.
The Penguins, trailing 1-0 after an early Nicklas Backstrom goal, got an early power play when Lars Eller got a two-minute minor for tripping. What ailed the power play was the same as what ailed the power play during other cold streaks.
The Penguins did a good job at maintaining offensive zone time, but were guilty of over-passing and not shooting the puck:
The Penguins allowed one shot on the first power play and only took one themselves.
"I think we've just got to keep moving out there and start shooting the puck, just crash the net," Jake Guentzel said. "Maybe we got a little stagnant at times. We've got to get one there, and I think that changes the game."
Shortly after Eller's penalty ended, Tom Wilson made his first mark of the game. Wilson ran Mark Jankowski with an extremely late hit that took Jankowski out for the rest of the first period, and was given just a two-minute minor for interference:
With no artificial crowd noise pumped in at Capital One Arena, it was easy to hear Wilson yelling "Great f---ing hit" and "What is that, two f---ing milliseconds?" from the box.
You don't need a stopwatch to see that Wilson came in a bit more than "two milliseconds" late.
After the game, Wilson defended the hit more.
"I thought it was a great hit," he said. "But I haven't watched it at all in live time. He batted it out of the air and I finished him through the body right after. I think that's a great hockey play and I'll watch the replay."
Jankowski didn't seem to have any time to react before the hit.
"I just whacked the puck back out of the air and into their end," Jankowski said. "I turned, I was about to go change, and I got hit."
The NHL rulebook allows referees to use their discretion to "assess a major penalty, based on the degree of violence, to a player guilty of interfering with an opponent," but this apparently wasn't deemed a high enough degree of violence to warrant the major.
When asked after the game if he agreed with the call, Mike Sullivan declined to offer an opinion.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "The referees are going to make the calls as they see it, we're just going to play."
On the ensuing two-minute power play, the Penguins only recorded one shot.
"As a power play, we've got to score one there," Guentzel said.
Cody Ceci responded in the second period, sending Wilson flying into the boards in front of the Capitals' bench with a (clean) hit, to which Wilson took exception on the ice.
"Cody's played a lot of games in this league," Brandon Tanev said. "He's a great player and an even better teammate. ... He plays the game the right way, and he stands up for his teammates in situations."
Sullivan was asked for his thoughts on his team's response to the Wilson hit.
"It was fine," he said. "We're just going to play the game. Teams are going to play physical against us, they always do. We're just going to try to play the game that gives us the best chance to win."
The Penguins were given another power play attempt shortly after when John Carlson was called for goaltender interference, and the Penguins didn't record a single shot on the power play.
When the Capitals got their own power play after Evgeni Malkin got called for hooking, the penalty kill did a lot of what made it so successful in Tuesday's game: Use cooperative pressure to make the Capitals' zone entries difficult, because the best way to make sure you don't get burned by an Alex Ovechkin shot from the left circle is to make sure he doesn't get a chance to set up there in the first place. The Capitals were held to zero shots on their power play, equaling their totals from the two power play attempts in Tuesday's game.
The Penguins received their fourth power play of the game late in the middle frame, and it was the same story as the previous three: Extended offensive zone time, but only two shots on goal for, and one against
"I thought we had a lot of zone time," Guentzel said. "It's not that, it's not the work ethic getting the puck back. It's just maybe sometimes we're looking to pass instead of just throwing it on net and breaking down their coverage."
"I just think we passed up opportunities to shoot the puck," Sullivan said of the power play. "I thought we had a fair amount, we had a significant amount of zone time. It didn't translate into as many plays at the net that I think we could have. Usually when we put more pucks in play, we create off of it."
T.J. Oshie extended the Capitals' lead early in the third period with an early candidate for goal of the year, undressing Mike Matheson and putting the puck over Tristan Jarry's blocker as he was falling to the ice:
Letang got called for hooking 20 seconds after Oshie scored, and the Penguins finally got a goal out of a special teams unit. Tanev raced through the neutral zone and scored from a wide angle to cut the Capitals' lead to one goal:
"I saw I had some space carrying the puck up the ice," Tanev said. "I think Teddy did a great job in pushing the defensemen back and creating some more space for me. I was fortunate to put a puck on net and the end result was goal."
Guentzel evened the score with an impressive move of his own, winning a battle along the boards and driving to the net to tuck the puck past Vitek Vanecek:
"Tanger just kind of cycled it down," Guentzel said of the play. "They like to play man-on-man, so I just tried to beat my guy. Great play by (Kasperi Kapanen) to allow that lane for me to get to the front of the net. I just tried to get it to the front of the net and see what happens from there. Not really sure where it went in, but I'll take it."
Drew O'Connor took a careless hooking penalty late in the third period, and the only special teams unit with a goal to their credit took the ice again for the Penguins.
This penalty kill wouldn't be as successful, and Bauer can take some of the blame.
Letang blocked a huge shot with his stick, snapping it in two pieces. With the Penguins unable to clear the puck, Letang wasn't able to make it to the bench to get a new stick, and Wilson made his mark on the game again with a redirect goal:
"When a guy loses a stick, it's another advantage in our favor," Wilson said of his goal. "We were able to execute and it was in the back of the net. That's a fortunate break for us, but at the end of the day we've still got to put it in, and the power play did a good job to do that."
Typically, when a defenseman loses his stick in a penalty kill, a forward will hand his over. We saw that several games ago, when Letang broke his stick on a kill and Jankowski immediately gave him his stick, even though Jankowski is left-handed and Letang is right-handed.
When Letang's stick broke, the forwards on the ice were Blueger and Tanev, two left-handed shots, but neither had an opportunity to hand their stick over.
"Obviously, we'd like to give him a stick in that situation," Tanev said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and they capitalized on the situation. It's a bad bounce. ... It's one of those things where you move on."
"I think there was (an opportunity for a forward to give Letang a stick)," Sullivan said. "We just didn't do it. We didn't execute it. Obviously, we'd like to get our defenseman a stick. It's hard to defend the net-front without a stick. We have to make sure that we get the defenseman the stick. If someone is going to play without it, it has to be a forward in the higher ice."
Another broken twig (apparently made from a literal twig) from Letang led to the first of two Capitals empty-net goals. A seemingly innocuous pass to Letang shattered his stick, taking him out of the play as Carl Hagelin capitalized as Jarry's net was left empty in favor of an extra attacker.
Another empty net goal from Eller sealed the Capitals' win, and the Penguins' attempt at a comeback fell short.
"I think the third was a pretty good period for us," Jankowski said of the Penguins' push in the final period. "The first two, they kind of out-competed us for a little bit there. But we had a good pushback in the third, and we ended up tying it. But unfortunately, they got that power play goal and some of those empty nets. We've got to take the good from that and move on to the Island."
"I loved our resilience," Sullivan said. "There was a lot of fight getting back into the game. We come back and get those two goals, I thought we had pretty good momentum from there. It was unfortunate we didn't find a way to at least get a point out of this, but that's hockey. We've got to rebound, get ready for the next one."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• After the game, Sullivan was asked if Jason Zucker's injury might be season-threatening, and he couldn't give a straight answer.
"Well, we would be hopeful that he would be (back this season) yes," he said. "But we're reluctant to put time frames on these things because every individual is different in how they respond to injuries. We would rather just report the injuries as longer-term, and that gives everyone a kind of an idea of the nature of the rehab. But we're hopeful that we'll get him back for the regular season and get him back in our lineup as soon as we can."
• I'm not sure what the answer is for replacing Zucker on Malkin's line, but Zach Aston-Reese might not be it. That's not at all a knock on Aston-Reese. The value Aston-Reese adds to the third line became even more evident after seeing how they fared when he was bumped up to the second line. The third line, with Aston-Reese, is normally such a strong possession line, but they struggled tonight, and the Penguins' shot differential when that line was on the ice was 11.28 percent lower than when the third line was not on the ice.
• Before the game, the Penguins recalled center/winger Josh Currie from the taxi squad and brought Anthony Angello up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to the taxi squad in his place. Both Currie and Jordy Bellerive are on this road trip and took part in the optional morning skates before both games.
Currie is probably the biggest reason that Wilkes-Barre's power play has been as good as it has been to start the season, with his dangerous shot. Coach J.D. Forrest spoke highly of Currie's game earlier in the season:
"He's really just relentless," Forrest said. "He does not stop working. He never gives up on a play, he never gives up on a puck."
• Defenseman Mark Friedman took warmups wearing No. 52, but did not play.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Capital One Arena:
1. Tom Wilson,Capitals
2. Vitek Vanecek, Capitals
3. T.J. Oshie, Capitals
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola has been out since suffering a upper-body on Jan. 19. He has been practicing with the team in a regular jersey and traveled with the team to Washington.
• Forward Evan Rodrigues has been out since suffering a lower-body injury on Jan. 25. He stayed in Pittsburgh to continue skating with skills coach Ty Hennes.
• Defenseman Brian Dumoulin has been out since suffering a lower-body injury on Jan. 26. He stayed in Pittsburgh to continue skating with Hennes.
• Forward Jared McCann has been out since suffering a lower-body injury on Feb. 6. He traveled with the Penguins to Washington and has been cleared for contact.
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer-term" with a lower-body injury sustained on Feb. 23. Sullivan wouldn't say for sure Thursday whether Zucker is expected back this season.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust
Brandon Tanev-Teddy Blueger-Sam Lafferty
Drew O'Connor-Mark Jankowski-Colton Sceviour
P.O Joseph-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-John Marino
Marcus Pettersson-Cody Ceci
And for Peter Laviolette's Capitals:
Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Conor Sheary
Jakub Vrana-Nicklas Backstrom-Tom Wilson
Richard Panik-Lars Eller-T.J. Oshie
Carl Hagelin-Nic Dowd-Garnet Hathaway
Brenden Dillon-John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov-Justin Schultz
Zdeno Chara-Nick Jensen
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins were originally scheduled to practice on Long Island Friday, but canceled practice. They'll play the Islanders in back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday, which Dave Molinari will cover for us.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.