PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s getting late early for the Pens. They had worked so hard after a horrible first month of the season to get back in the playoff picture. Even in Tuesday’s game, worked to battle back to take a 3-1 lead late, only to blow a key game, in the division, to a team behind them.
Columbus wins for the first time in the last 16 games at PPG Paints Arena, 4-3 in a shootout.
“Fight back in this game and then let it go, lose another shootout and overtime,” said forward Rickard Rakell, who scored a pair to reach 20 goals this season. “It’s been a lot of tight games. We need to find a way to get two points.”
Kris Letang said they need to get back to playing on their toes, playing aggressive and a north-south game. They are falling back into the habit of trying to be too perfect.
The loss ties the Pens with the Blue Jackets for the final Wild Card spot at 42 points. Ottawa and Montreal have 41 points, Detroit with 40 followed by Philly with 39, the Rangers with 38 and Islanders with 37.
“It’s never too early to play the points game,” said forward Bryan Rust.
“As you can see, there is seven points between the first Wild Card and last in the conference. We got to be playing the points game. We need to get two as much as we can.”
“We know how tight it is in the standings,” Rakell said. “It’s probably going to be like that the rest of the way. We know every point matters, it’s very frustrating.”
“We obviously need points,” said goalie Tristan Jarry. “That has to be the mindset every game, to get points. Whether it’s winning those games in overtime, shootout or regulation, we need points.”
It was a frustrating start, for the sixth time this season Jarry gave up a goal on the first shot he saw, on the Columbus power play. The franchise record is seven first-shot goals allowed (Tom Barrasso), but we are only at game 42.
“It’s tough,” Jarry said. “There is not much different I would do on that. He comes down, has a lot of time, and he’s able to make that play quickly and get it between my legs. It’s tough. I don’t think anybody wants the first shot to go in.”
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Jarry would make 22 straight saves after allowing the first-shot goal, but allowed one at the 12:05 mark of the third period and then the power play at 17:24. After facing only one shot in overtime, he would give up the first and third shot of the shootout.
“Obviously the shootout is the shootout, it’s hard to win when you give up two out of three,” said Pens head coach Mike Sullivan. “We’d like him to be better there. I thought he made some saves most of the night. I would have liked the goalie exchange to be a little cleaner.”
“For me, I think it’s a little bit of both-I thought he had some moments when he made some saves, (but) he’s capable of more.”
So is this team, yet here they already having to count points with 40 more games to play.