The Penguins are, without question, a team still full of exceptional playmakers throughout the ice. But a developing trend has emerged on what now is a five-game losing streak for Pittsburgh.
“High risk plays is going to win you some, but it's going to lose you a lot more than you win,” said defenseman Marcus Pettersson following Pittsburgh’s 6-5 overtime loss to Boston Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena. “So, we’ve got to get away from that and get back to our team game.”
The Penguins coughed up a 5-2 lead, and led 5-3 nearly 12 minutes into the third. But Boston rallied, in part, due to carless play by the Penguins in the attacking end of the ice.
“We’re obviously a real skilled team,” forward Josh Archibald said. “Guys are gong to make plays. But we’ve got to pick and choose when we’re going make those plays.
“Obviously, coach isn’t going to take the stick out of anybody’s hands. But, at the same time, we’ve just got to play simple sometimes. Especially when we’re up by two goals heading into the third period. That’s one of those times when you just play simple. We’re going in the right direction, bit it’s not the outcome we wanted.”
The turnovers occurred throughout, but were accentuated in the game’s opening and closing periods. In the first, Evgeni Malkin twice gave away the puck while on the power play, and again shortly before Boston grabbed a 2-1 lead on a goal by Jakub Lauko.
“Well, we're learning the hard way right now,” said Penguins coach Mike Sullivan. “If we're going to be the team we want to become, we can't beat ourselves. And the easiest way to beat yourself is to not take care of the puck in the critical areas of the rink and most specifically in and around the blue lines on both sides of it.
“It's such an important area of the rink. If you don't make good decisions there, you don't take care of the puck there, then you feed an opponent's transition game and it's hard for your team to get into any sort of defensive posture.”
Sullivan, and others, feel this isn’t just a one-off situation against a strong Bruins team that is now 9-1 this season. It’s happened too frequently, particularly during the Penguins’ skid. And it looks even worse when a hefty lead is squandered.
“It definitely sucks,” forward Brock McGinn said. “Nobody wants to lose. And when you have a lead, you definitely don’t want to lose.”
But the Penguins move on. And they’ll do it quickly. The team travels north Wednesday evening to take on Buffalo, off to a strong start at 6-3. They’ll do it off a loss. A rough loss. One that may be hard to swallow. But it’s also one that came with five goals, and maybe a valuable lesson at the end.
“I think we did a lot of good things,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “A lot of good things in every area… I think that's why it's disappointing to not come up with two points. But we've got to build off it and take that into tomorrow. We got to turn the page quick here.”