Evgeni Malkin called it the "same story."
The Penguins controlled play for two periods against the Islanders, and carried a lead into third period that wasn't as sizable as the discrepancy in the two teams' play had been through the first 40 minutes. Though the Penguins still played pretty well in the third, the Islanders swung momentum back in their direction and were opportunistic. They capitalized on the Penguins' mistakes to take the lead in regulation, ensuring the Penguins couldn't even get a crucial point in the standings out of the loss.
No, this time I'm not talking about Friday's loss on Long Island. I'm talking about the Penguins' 4-2 loss at home on Monday.
Same script, different day.
Just like on Long Island, it was a frustrated locker room after the game. The Penguins' mistakes and inconsistencies are preventing them from closing out games, and they're leaving points on the table at the worst time against division rivals.
The Penguins came out hot, outshooting the Islanders 19-7 in the first 20 minutes. They only had one goal to show for it, with Jake Guentzel being the only one able to beat Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin in the first period. A Brock Nelson snipe tied the game early in the middle frame, but a power play goal from Jason Zucker regained the lead going into second intermission.
Bo Horvat tied the game in the third period with a tough-angle shot that beat Tristan Jarry, a sequence made possible by P.O Joseph's turnover in the Penguins' end just before:
"They got some life off of tying the game," Sidney Crosby said. "We were all over them. They're on their heels, and they get a goal and a little bit of life. That's normal. There's ebbs and flows and momentum shifts, but we don't want to give up goals. They can get momentum, get life from tying a game like that."
Anders Lee scored the game-winner, capitalizing off of a misplay of the puck by Jarry behind the net:
"We made a call, and they got in between it," Jarry said of the goal. "They were able to funnel it out front and out-man us."
An empty-net goal from Nelson put the game away in the final minute. Once again, the Penguins suffered a regulation loss to a divisional opponent after an early lead, and they only have their own mistakes to blame.
"It's hard to say," Malkin said of how this story was able to repeat itself on Monday. "We know we need to win. We should play the same if we lead two goals or one, just don't wait -- try to win. Play the same game, forecheck. ... Again, we played two periods unbelievable. The third period we played good, too. A couple of bad luck, bad bounces, we lost again."
Bryan Rust summed it up as "missed plays at wrong times."
"It seems to be that when we do make those plays, the puck ends up in the back of our net," Rust said.
The parallels to the game on Long Island just days before weren't lost on Mike Sullivan.
"It was a similar circumstance to the way the game was played in Long Island," Sullivan said. "Instead of finding a way to win, we found a way to lose. We made a couple of mistakes that ended up in the back of our net."
Again, Sullivan liked a lot about what he saw from the team. That 19-7 shot disparity in the first period was real. But mistakes negated all of that. The bright side is that it's obvious what one big issue is right now, and the team knows what to do when they meet to review video on Tuesday.
"It's a game of mistakes -- you've got to try to minimize the egregious ones," Sullivan said. "So, we'll go to work with our players. We'll watch film. We'll try to learn from the experience. We've got to get better. There was a lot to like about the game, too. I thought we had a lot of high-quality chances. We only end up with two that are in the back of the net. We could have had a lot more."
The loss was the Penguins' ninth in a row against Metropolitan Division opponents, and dropped them out of a playoff position. With 63 points on the season, the Penguins sit behind the Islanders (65 points) and Panthers (64 points) in the Eastern Conference wild card race, though the Penguins have four games in hand of both teams. Those games in hand only come in handy if they actually win them, though. They realize that the standings are tight, and they need to start picking up the points sooner rather than later.
"It's always a worry," Jarry said of the playoff picture. "You want to win as many games as you can, and I think that's the key. That's what we're going to have to start doing."
The challenge is to make sure that actual worry and doubt doesn't start to creep in and impact the team's confidence, because lacking confidence is no way to get back in the win column.
"It's not ideal when you lose games when you have leads," Crosby said. "The only way out of it is to find a way to win one and try to get some momentum from that. We can't dwell on it."
Rust had no hesitation, a quick "no" when asked if there's any concern about the team's mindset dwindling.
"There's plenty of games left and we've got some real good players in here who have seen a lot of things," he said. "I'm not worried about it."
Malkin acknowledged that the mood in the locker room is "not great" right now, but thinks that this team has it in them to right the ship before it's too late.
"If we play the same, fight every inch, try to play hard, we can win one game," Malkin said. "We have a great team here. I believe in everyone. If we play the same, we can be in the playoffs, for sure. ... We'll wake up tomorrow with a little bit of rest. We have a couple days rest before next game. Right now we understand that every game is important. Jarry's back. We just stay focused, stay positive, have a couple practices before next game, support each other. Keep going. It's not over. We need to win a lot. Same level, same energy and I think we'll be fine."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Guentzel opened the scoring off a feed from Crosby in the first period:
• The Penguins' other goal was this power play tally from Zucker:
• Jarry, playing in his first game since Jan. 22, finished the night with 28 saves on 31 shots:
"I felt good," Jarry told me of how he felt physically in his return to game action. "It's obviously tough this time of year to come back in, and you don't have many practices. You don't have many opportunities to skate. That's the toughest thing of all is just getting back into game action. It was good, and it's always tough when you've almost had two months off."
I asked Jarry if he felt like he needed any time to settle into the game after so much time off.
"No, I felt good from the start," he said. "It was what I wanted, and I think it will only get better from here."
Sullivan said that Jarry was "pretty solid most of the night."
"I think when he's at his best, he probably doesn't give up the goals late," Sullivan added. "But to his defense, he hasn't played in a while. So we're trying to get him into game shape. It's almost like baptism by fire here. We've gotten him as many reps as we can in practice trying to simulate game scenarios. We got to give him a chance to get his feet under him here, and I think he'll get better with every game that he plays. It's hard to simulate that in a practice environment. So I think Jars will get better with every game that he plays. I thought for the most part, he was pretty solid."
• Jarry had a puck hit him in the side of the neck in the third period, an area that isn't protected by anything. He had a little grin afterward when asked about it and said that it "just hurt."
• The power play went 1-for-4 against the NHL's fifth-best power play. Danny Shirey broke down what went wrong in his story.
• The penalty kill went 3-for-3 against an Islanders power play that is seventh-worst in the NHL.
• The third line's results were at least a little better tonight with Brock McGinn back with Jeff Carter and Kasperi Kapanen, relatively speaking. They played 8:13 at five-on-five. Shot attempts with them on the ice were 7-6, unblocked shot attempts were 5-5, high danger attempts were 1-0, shots on goal were 3-4, and no goals were scored in either direction. They weren't exactly being sheltered, either. They had 5 faceoffs in the offensive zone, 3 in the neutral zone and 5 in the defensive zone. They were primarily deployed against the Islanders' third line against Casey Cizikas.
• With Drew O'Connor back down on the fourth line with Teddy Blueger and Josh Archibald, that line had a good game despite being on the ice for Nelson's first goal. When they were on the ice for 4:33 at five-on-five, shot attempts were 9-4, unblocked attempts were 9-3, high danger attempts were 2-2, and they outshot the Islanders 8-2. Blueger and O'Connor each recorded four shots on goal at five-on-five, Archibald didn't record any. They combined for eight hits at five-on-five -- five from Archibald, one from Blueger and two from O'Connor. They were primarily deployed against the Islanders' second line centered by Nelson.
• The Islanders led in faceoffs, 69%-31%. Carter was the only center to not be in the red, finishing 8-8. Sidney Crosby went 8-9, Malkin went 3-9, Blueger went 2-8.
• Brian Dumoulin led with three blocked shots.
• There was a mini-brawl in the second period that looked like it had the potential to add a spark. Danny has more on that in Freeze Frame.
• Malkin's roughing penalty in the altercation brought him to 1,042 career penalty minutes, six away from tying Kevin Stevens for the Penguins' franchise record.
• Jake Guentzel drew four penalties in the game -- a high-sticking call in the first, a roughing call in the second-period mess, and both a roughing call and an interference call in one scuffle in the third period. His 23 total penalties drawn this season ties McGinn for the team-lead. Both players sit tied at 17th in the league for drawn penalties.
• This was the first regular-season loss to the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena since 2019.
• The Penguins sent Dustin Tokarski back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton prior to the game with Jarry coming off of injured reserve. That gives the Penguins $1,225,000 in cap space right now, but that all goes away (as does the money to afford two skaters currently on the roster) whenever Jan Rutta comes back, which is expected to happen soon.
• Congratulations to Casey DeSmith, who is expecting his first child -- a girl -- with his wife. Marcus Pettersson, Chad Ruhwedel and Rust also have babies on the way. Tokarski and Archibald each welcomed new babies within the last two months or so.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Brock Nelson, Islanders C
2. Ilya Sorokin, IslandersG
3. Anders Lee, Islanders LW
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Jan Rutta suffered an upper-body injury on Jan. 14 and has resumed skating with the team in a full capacity.
• Forward Ryan Poehling has missed the last four games with the same nagging upper-body injury that he's been dealing with off and on since December. He has resumed skating with the team in a full capacity.
• Defenseman Mark Friedman suffered an undisclosed injury on Feb. 11. He's resumed skating with the team in a full capacity.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Brock McGinn - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
Drew O'Connor - Teddy Blueger - Josh Archibald
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph - Chad Ruhwedel
And for Lane Lambert's Islanders:
Anders Lee - Bo Horvat - Simon Homstrom
Zach Parise - Brock Nelson - Kyle Palmieri
Anaud Durandeau - Cazey Cizikas - Hudson Fasching
Ross Johnston - Andy Andreoff - Matt Martin
Alexander Romanov - Scott Mayfield
Adam Pelech - Ryan Pulock
Sebastian Aho - Noah Dobson
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins were originally scheduled to practice in Cranberry on Tuesday but they canceled it after the game. They'll practice next on Wednesday at noon. Next game is Thursday at home against the Oilers.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
THE MULTIMEDIA
