Penguins 'didn't let first 40 ruin last 20' in OT loss to Senators

OTTAWA -- It's a Festivus miracle that the Penguins came away with a point in the standings on Saturday after the way they looked in their first 40 minutes of their 5-4 overtime loss in Ottawa.

The Penguins entered the second intermission on Saturday trailing by a 4-2 margin. The Senators came out with the urgency needed to play, and the Penguins didn't. 

The message in the locker room at that second intermission, Lars Eller said, was "Turn the page, don't let the first 40 ruin the last 20."

The Penguins showed up for the third period with what they were lacking in the first two frames and dug themselves out of the early hole they put themselves in. While they weren't able to close out the win in the three-on-three overtime that followed, the way they played in the third period avoided them going into the holiday break on a complete low note.

The Penguins knew that the Senators would come into this game with some urgency. The Senators were 11-17, riding a six-game losing streak, and back at home for the first time since firing head coach D.J. Smith and naming Jacques Martin his interim replacement.

"They're trying to find their way right now," Mike Sullivan said that morning of the Senators. "They've obviously had a coaching change, and usually that entails a whole lot of urgency. So we would expect a team that's going to play with a lot of urgency."

The Senators lived up to expectations. Through 40 minutes the Senators had a 30-19 lead in unblocked shot attempts. The Penguins were being outshot 21-11, including 13-7 at five-on-five, and trailing 4-2. The Senators' penalty kill, which entered Saturday's game ranked dead last in the league with just a 70.2% rate, had killed off five of six Penguins power plays. Only Lars Eller was able to find the back of the net on the man advantage:

Rickard Rakell had the Penguins' only even-strength goal through 40 minutes, redirecting a Sidney Crosby pass in the second period for his first goal of the year.

"The first 40 minutes was below the level we expect ourselves to be," Eller said. "I don't think we were committed to playing the right way without the puck. We were kind of slow, watching."

When the Penguins don't play the right way without the puck, when they're not defending anywhere close to the level they did Thursday night vs. Carolina, when they aren't closing the gaps, then they're "not going to have juice to attack," Eller said.

The script flipped in the third.

"We raised our level of urgency and we raised our level of execution," Sullivan said of what transpired in the third.

The Penguins attempted 29 unblocked shot attempts in the third period alone, more than their first two periods combined. They only allowed seven unblocked shot attempts in that frame, half as much as they did in either of the first two periods. They outshot the Senators 23-4, and they were good quality shots, too. They recorded 11 high-danger attempts after only recording five in the first two periods combined. They only allowed a single high-danger attempt after allowing six in the first two periods combined.

Two third-period tallies from the Penguins beat Anton Forsberg to tie the game and eventually force overtime. Drew O'Connor got the rally going with a goal 1:51 into the third, his third goal of the year and first goal since Nov. 30:

Kris Letang scored the equalizer with only 2:26 remaining in regulation with a shot through traffic:

"I thought we battled hard in the third period," Rakell said. "We wanted to throw more pucks at the net, and we certainly did. We had some good looks."

The shots were evident. But it was the strong play away from the puck too that allowed them to have that "juice" they needed. When they lost possession, it was quickly regained, and they were able to maintain that possession longer. The puck rarely made it into their own end in the third period.

"We did a good job of holding onto it in the offensive zone and moving for each other," Eller said. "It was like everybody wanted the puck. In the first two periods, it didn't look like too many guys wanted the puck or were willing to work for it. In the third, we were."

"We played a better possession game," Rakell said, echoing a similar sentiment. "We held onto more pucks and made sure we came together and got a good forecheck out of that. Our D did a good job of getting pucks to the net, and we just tried to crash it. It was definitely better in the third."

Tim Stutzle's overtime winner 70 seconds into the extra frame kept the Penguins from getting the extra point. That leaves the Penguins five points out of a playoff spot heading into the holiday break, with three games in hand behind the Lightning in the second wild card spot. That's not a bad place to be. But they'd be even closer had they came out of the gate with any semblance of the "juice" they had in the third period. Any of that willingness to drive to the net, battle for pucks, get more shots through instead of passing, could have kept the Penguins from getting into that early hole. Then, a third period as dominant as that one could have resulted in a regulation win, rather than just being good enough to get them to overtime.

That should be the lesson the Penguins take from this moving forward. It's one they'll need to learn if they're going to make up ground in the standings.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Canadian Tire Centre:

1. Brady Tkachuk, Senators LW
2. Jakob Chychrun, Senators D
3. Kris Letang, Penguins D

THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Penguins: None

• Senators: None

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Valtteri Puustinen
Radim Zohorna - Lars Eller - Drew O'Connor
Jansen Harkins - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter

Marcus Pettersson - Kris Letang
Ryan Graves - Erik Karlsson
John Ludvig - Chad Ruhwedel

And for Jacques Martin's Senators:

Brady Tkachuk - Josh Norris - Claude Giroux
Vladimir Tarasenko - Tim Stutzle - Drake Batherson
Dominik Kubalik - Ridly Greig - Angus Crookshank
Jiri Smejkal - Mark Kastelic - Parker Kelly

Jake Sanderson - Artem Zub
Jakob Chychrun - Travis Hamonic
Erik Brannstrom - Jacob Bernard-Docker

THE SCHEDULE

That's it for now, the league's holiday break begins now. They'll travel to Long Island the morning of the 27th for a game against the Islanders that evening.

THE FEED

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