Any reason to worry after (another) blown third-period lead?

The Penguins were one of the worst teams in the league last season when it came to holding onto third-period leads.

There were 37 games last season in which the Penguins held a lead entering the third period -- all they had to do was hold on for 20 more minutes to get the win. Their record in those games was 28-4-5, giving them a .757 points percentage that ranked 28th in the league.

Those blown leads cost them 13 points in the standings. Two more points in the standings -- holding onto one more third-period lead for a win -- would have been the difference between making the playoffs and their early exit last season. Those were points left on the table over the course of the year that proved to be costly by April.

They don't want to make a habit of leaving those points on the table this year. 

The Penguins lost their season opener against the Blackhawks at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday by a score of 4-2. They carried a 2-1 lead entering the third period off of goals from Bryan Rust and Sidney Crosby, and let it slip away in the last 20 minutes.

Is there any cause for concern about this becoming a trend again, though?

Many of the last blown leads from last season followed the same script -- the Penguins dominated in the first two frames, and then collapsed in the third. That wasn't what happened tonight.

The first period was fairly even. Rust's opening goal was the lone tally, and the shot and shot attempt totals were tilted slightly in the Blackhawks' favor, but the Penguins had the higher quality shots. Each team netted a goal in the second period, and the Penguins outshot the Blackhawks 15-10, but the Blackhawks had the edge in total shot attempts, 27-22.

The Penguins didn't collapse in the third period. They actually tightened things up. They allowed fewer shot attempts, unblocked attempts, and shots on goal than in each of the first two periods. After allowing 27 total shots on goal through the first two periods, they allowed a more reasonable nine in the third. Those shots just proved to be more costly.

"I don't think it had to do with the third period or anything," Marcus Pettersson told me of the loss. "Overall in the game, we weren't as sharp as we needed to be."

Cole Guttman had the tying goal in the third for the Blackhawks, burying a centering pass from Seth Jones:

The game-winner was a tough bounce. Corey Perry took a shot that deflected off the stick of Crosby and popped out right to Jason Dickinson, who was alone at the right circle. Dickinson dove to take the shot:

That's a fluke of a play. The puck happened to hit Crosby's stick, and happened to land right in the lap of the forward who was left open. It wasn't anything the Blackhawks were trying to do, but they were able to capitalize. And even though there was a lot of luck involved on that goal, the Penguins aren't making excuses and absolving themselves of responsibility.

"Their goal was an unfortunate bounce, it goes off the stick, goes right to the guy that's hanging out in the slot," Kris Letang said of that play. "Sometimes it looks like bad luck, but we always say that you create your own luck in hockey. If we would have stepped on the gas and played simple and just played a north-south game, I think we wouldn't be in that situation."

Rickard Rakell echoed a similar sentiment.

"Obviously some of the goals were some lucky bounces," he told me. "But at the same time, we let them get there. So we're just going to learn from this and get better."

The Penguins weren't able to generate much their own way to increase their lead in the third, either. They were attempting more shots -- they had 22 attempts in each of the first two periods, and then 28 in the third. But they weren't quality attempts. They mustered up one high-danger attempt in the entire third period after recording 11 in the first two periods combined.

"I feel like we had a really good look in the first shift in the third period," Rakell said. "Then I don't know if there was some frustration from our part, having a lot of scoring chances and not being able to score on it. If we score on those chances, it's a different story. But at the same time, I know we're trying to make the easy play sometimes."

Letang didn't think it was frustration -- he think the Penguins just sat back in the third. And that's when those "easy plays" creep in.

"We came out fast in the first period, we had speed, we had energy," Letang said. "And I think we just settled on kind of a possession game. Not so fast. Not so physical. So we have to get back to that."

It's too early to say that these are the same Penguins, and the same trends that plagued them last year haven't been solved. It's been one game. There are 10 players on the 22-man roster who are brand new to the team, and seven of them were in the lineup tonight. Per Bob Grove, the last time the Penguins had that many players new to the lineup at one time was way back in 2006, when Letang was one of them and making his NHL debut. The Penguins only had a couple of preseason games that were real dress rehearsals with NHL rosters.

Mike Sullivan knows the Penguins needed to tighten things up, but he doesn't think this game is indicative of how the Penguins are capable of playing.

“Well, I think this is a new year, it's a new team, it’s a whole new group of players," Sullivan said. "I’d like to believe we’re a better team than what we showed tonight. I just thought it was a loose game. It was a high-event game on both sides. That’s not the type of game that's conducive to winning. We certainly don't stack the deck in our favor. So we’ve got to play more responsible.”

Pettersson said that preserving those third-period leads is going to be a matter of just playing tighter and focusing on puck management.

"We want to play on our toes and play in the offensive zone, but we've got to do it in a smart way," he added.

They have ample time to figure it out.