PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It was as critical as we’ve really heard Pens head coach Dan Muse following a loss. A poorly played 3-2 defeat against Ottawa Monday night at PPG Paints Arena breaking a six-game winning streak.
"We have to be better than this,” Muse said. “For me this is so far off the mark of where we've been playing & working to get to."
Pens struggled to get offensive chances, especially after the first period, managing just nine shots in the final 40 minutes, 16 shots overall. That was nearly doubled by the 31 shots by the Senators.
“We were not very good today, myself included,” said defenseman Erik Karlsson who had possibly his worst game of the season. “It was one of the tougher nights. That’s how it’s going to be sometimes, unfortunately. We battled as hard as we could with what we had today and what we had today wasn’t much.”
“I don’t think we deserved to win this one.”
“We spent, it felt like a great, great, great majority of the game either defending or without the puck,” Muse said. “You don’t want to play that game. We got to look in the mirror tonight in terms of the way we played.”
“It was flat. It was (lack of) execution. Silovs had a really strong game. I think our penalty kill did a good job, outside of that I don’t think there is much that I’m walking away here liking.”
Pens dropped its first game since January 17 and tomorrow play the first of two in New York to finish play before the Olympic break. Pens are at the Islanders, just two points ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division.
“It can’t get any worse, can it?” Karlsson said.
“This is not the brand of hockey we are accustomed to playing. We got to wash the one away. We know we are a much better hockey team. We got a big game (Tuesday) & I think everybody is ready to turn the page & move to that one.”
“This was a very disappointing game for us,” said forward Rickard Rakell. “We got another chance (Tuesday) to play better hockey.”
“It's an opportunity (Tuesday at the Islanders) to show ourselves there's a much better game that we have the ability to play than that," Muse said.
Decider, was it a goal?
There was controversy with the game-winning goal. As Ottawa’s Claude Giroux was breaking for the net late in the third period, Karlsson was called for a slash. It appeared Silovs made the initial save and then appeared to be interfered with as Giroux slid into him and the puck slid over the line.
“I saw it as it was called a slash, he makes the save and got run into,” Muse said. “There was nothing else he could do.”
“For me it doesn’t make sense,” Silovs said. “He came in, I stopped the puck and then he goes like 25 miles (an hour) going down. What do they expect me to do? I don’t agree with the call.”
Silovs said it depends ref to ref as to what is called goalie interference. He’s confused when sometimes ‘a little touch’ can draw a penalty that wasn’t called in this circumstance on Giroux.
Muse challenged the call and it was upheld, which meant, now down 3-2 with 5:08 to play his team would have to kill a two-minute penalty.
“I would challenge that one again.”