PENGUINS

The Penguins were tied with the Ducks, 94 seconds away from securing at least an overtime point to kick off the California road trip Tuesday here  at Honda Center when Parker Wotherspoon took an admitted "dumb" penalty.

Wotherspoon was trying to break the puck out of the Penguins' end and hardly under any real pressure when he sent it out of play and into the stands -- an easy delay of game call.

"Just a dumb play," Wotherspoon would tell me afterward, shaking his head. "Just trying to make the right choice, get it off the glass. Super unfortunate, but I can't be doing that, that late in the game. Just dumb."

It took longtime nemesis Chris Kreider all of seven seconds on the ensuing man advantage to capitalize with a one-timer, scoring the would-be game-winner in what ended up being a 4-3 Penguins loss.

It was a fitting way to end the game. The Ducks amassed six power plays to the Penguins' one, with the lone penalty on the Ducks coming as an automatic call as a result of a failed coaches challenge to overturn Anthony Mantha's tying goal. The Ducks scored on two of their six power plays, and benefitted otherwise from the big momentum swings that the man advantages brought them.

"We would have liked to get more power plays, and we would like our kill to be a little bit better," Bryan Rust said. "That was the difference in the game."

Some of the calls were clear-cut. When Wotherspoon puts the puck out of play in the third, that has to be called. When Erik Karlsson clips Jackson LaCombe in the face earlier in the period, that's a blatant high-stick. But other calls -- like the first penalty for holding on Matt Dumba, or the Sidney Crosby hook that resulted in the first power play goal from Kreider -- were more subjective. And while there surely could have been some more of those "close" calls made on the Ducks at some point over the 60 minutes, there weren't any made.

"I thought we deserved a couple, and probably didn't deserve a couple," Crosby told me of the calls. "But that happens sometimes, and you've got to find ways to kill them usually."

This was the first time since Dan Muse has been the coach of the Penguins that officiating has really moved the needle in either direction, and so tonight was the first real reason to ask for his thoughts on the matter. And when I asked if he was surprised at some of those earlier more subjective calls, he took that as an opportunity to "make a statement," as he put it.

"I'm not going to comment on -- not just now, or throughout the year -- on the officials or anything like that," he said. "It's just a road I'm not going to go down."

Fine, that's fair. But there's no denying that the penalties did have an impact.

"You want to be at least even, or getting more advantage than you are killing," Muse said. "So it plays a role. And at the same time too, when you do have to kill penalties, we're a little early. I think parts of our game, it's an area we're going to continue to work to improve."

Everyone seemed to be making sure they weren't coming off as if they were making excuses. They could have defended those two Kreider goals better. They could have done more with the one opportunity they did have, only getting one shot on goal in those two minutes. But it'd also be hard to deny that the Penguins were the better team at five-on-five, and maybe a power play ratio closer than 6-1 would have made a significant difference in the outcome.

In total, the Penguins outshot the Ducks 25-22. The Ducks had a sizable 70-55 lead in shot attempts, while the Penguins led 16-9 in high-danger attempts. The Ducks led 2.61-2.51 in expected goals.

At five-on-five, though? The Penguins outshot the Ducks 24-14. Shot attempts were more even at 51-49 Ducks, and the Penguins led 15-9 in high-danger attempts, as well as 2.34-1.36 in expected goals. And of course, they led 3-2 in actual goals, courtesy of Justin Brazeau, Rickard Rakell and Mantha.

"I thought we did enough to win," Crosby told me. "I thought we had some good looks. A good start. I thought we came on good in second there late, and then kind of carried that over in the third. We did a lot of good things. It's unfortunate."

It's four games into the season. The Penguins haven't had a ton of on-ice work dedicated to the penalty-kill. Of course in practice, the power play and penalty-kills go head-to-head, and if a player like Rust or Rakell plays on both, then they're going to work with the power play more often than not. With the roster shuffling through these early parts of the season, with notable penalty-killer Noel Acciari coming out of the lineup in this one, the groups used are still in a constant flux.

Is there a lesson to be learned with this loss? 

Maybe that more penalty-kill work is needed. And for the players who took some of the more blatant penalties, it's a tough reminder of the importance of cleaning some of those things up. But it was also encouraging to see the way the team was capable of playing at five-on-five, especially in rebounding from the previous game's mess against the Rangers.