PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s hard to think of a worse start to a season, not only losing but getting drilled by a division rival 6-0 Rangers at PPG Paints Arena Wednesday night.
“Nothing worked tonight, all four lines didn’t play great,” said forward Evgeni Malkin. “It was a whole team loss. We need to focus tomorrow. We need better play for sure.”
If there is a silver lining to having to play back-to-back games to open the season it’s that you can quickly forget about this game Thursday night at Detroit. Even though the Rangers scored 2:57 into the game, the Pens looked fairly good early.
“I thought the start of the game we played pretty well for the first 13 minutes or so,” said Pens head coach Mike Sullivan. “There was a two-or-three-minute span of the first period where we gave up a couple of goals and we just didn’t seem to grab a hold of it from there.”
“I thought we came out pretty strong,” said goalie Tristan Jarry who gave up all six goals. “We just got a little loose at times. I lot of odd-man rushes. I think if I make a save on that second one it at least helps the guys stay in it.”
“Hockey is such a game of momentum and there are critical moments of games that can potentially change outcomes,” Sullivan said. “I thought from a process standpoint for much of the first period, we likely what we saw.”
Pens trailed 3-0 after the first period, 4-0 after two before New York put the cap on it with a pair in the final period. The Pens were outshot 41-29 (15-10 in the first period), 0-3 on the power play, had 19 giveaways, were -10 in blocked shots. Nothing really went right.
“I think It’s probably premature to overreact, but certainly we are disappointed with the result,” Sullivan said.
“It’s obviously tough, it’s not the outcome that you want,” Jarry said. “It’s a long season. We have to find our legs. We will be better and learn from it.”