The Penguins’ recent up-and-down run of play and inconsistencies are hardly the kind of track record that can be blamed on officiating. Their second line has gone missing at times for entire games, their desire to play the tight, buttoned-up, boring brand of hockey necessary for them to win games wanes at the most inopportune moments, and of course their power play has been atrocious.
Tuesday night in Nashville may be an exception, though.
Did the Pens play a particularly wild and out-of-control game, especially in the first 15-20 minutes, allowing the Predators to dictate the pace and tempo of the game early on? Yes.
Did the power play once again appear impotent? Yes.
Did Evgeni Malkin’s line have the worst shot share and puck possession metrics of the four forward units, belying what was a beautiful set-up by Reilly Smith of Malkin’s first goal of the non-empty net variety in nearly three weeks? Yes.
That officiating, though. Oof.
Aside from a pair of ticky-tack calls on Jansen Harkins and Marcus Pettersson in the second period, the tandem of Kyle Rehman and Jordan Samuels-Thomas didn’t seem especially interested in controlling a game that was admittedly played at a bit of a breakneck pace at times.
Oh, other than when Rehman left his microphone on to admonish Kris Letang for contesting the call on Pettersson.
On a night when two perfectly imperfect teams met -both the Pens and Preds came in 10-10-0 through their first 20 games- the slim, almost imperceptible margin of error the Penguins have to avoid was on display in the mere 14 seconds of overtime that were ended by Filip Forsberg’s game-winning goal.
Was Sidney Crosby interfered with by Ryan O’Reilly? Sure. Was it on purpose? I mean, if trying to stay onside and backing into Crosby was a deceptive way of selling the pick by O’Reilly, credit to the crafty vet for pulling it off, because it looked incidental.
But therein lies the issue with what this version of the Pittsburgh Penguins has become: A top heavy roster that needs everything to go right to eke out victories.
When the Crosby-Malkin-Letang Era version of this team has been at it’s best, it hasn’t had to have everything break their way in order to sneak out of Nashville on a Tuesday night in November with a point.
This team simply isn’t consistent enough to overcome their occasional disinterest, deficiencies, or less-than-perfect performances. And on Tuesday night, they weren’t good enough to overcome borderline calls going against them.
With a quarter of the season gone, the Penguins have the fourth-lowest points percentage in the Eastern Conference, yet in the insanely competitive Metropolitan Division are just two points behind the Philadelphia Flyers for the division’s final playoff spot.
Yes, the same Flyers team they face in a home-and-home this coming Saturday and Monday.