Same Old Story: Penguins’ Loss Against Islanders Latest Example Of Glaring Issue

Goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic didn’t hold back when talking about the Penguins’ latest loss on Tuesday to the New York Islanders.

“It sucks. It’s frustrating,” Nedeljkovic said. “We played great the first two periods, and I thought we took it to ’em, and just… yeah, I don’t know. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”

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The same has been the story of these Penguins the entire season and going back a few years. They were ahead, 2-1, heading into the final frame, and Michael Bunting scored his first goal of the season at 7:44 of the third period to put the Penguins ahead by two.

Then, just one minute and 57 seconds later, the Islanders scored their second goal of the game. And in a span of three minutes and seven seconds, that lead was gone, ending with the Islanders besting the Penguins in a shootout, 4-3.

The Penguins have not only found a way to blow multi-goal leads in the third period, they’ve also done it in quick order several times over this season, almost as if they are unable to regroup after giving up the first goal. They haven’t been able to find a way to hold on when teams start to pressure.

And this, as Nedeljkovic alluded to, is simply unnacceptable.

“You gotta expect they’re going to come out with a push,” he said. “I mean, Montreal came out with a push last week. Anaheim, same thing, like… teams are going to push back, obviously, and I don’t know if we handled it, maybe, the best. I think we got away from what was making us successful the first two periods, and it’s hard to play that way. It’s not like we were giving up a lot, it’s just that what we were giving up kind of wasn’t great, and we weren’t really giving up much the first two periods.”

Head coach Mike Sullivan didn’t hold back, either.

“We just need to play better,” Sullivan said. “We should’ve played the way that we played in the first two periods, and we would’ve been fine. We played a straight-ahead game. I think we weren’t as diligent with the puck. We didn’t play as much north-south. Give the Islanders credit, they pushed back.”

Here are some thoughts and observations from Tuesday’s game:

– From my perspective, there is a glaring fatal flaw in the Penguins’ game plan.

Sullivan and Nedeljkovic both mentioned how the Penguins were unable to play the way they did in the first two periods.

“I thought we dominated the first two periods,” Sullivan said. “There was one shift in the second period where we got sloppy with the puck. We turned it over a couple of times in our end, and they got probably four or five shots on goal and, maybe, a couple of scoring chances. Other than that shift, they didn’t have much. And, from our vantage point, I thought we controlled most of the game. We had opportunities to break it open, and we couldn’t.”

Marcus Pettersson, like Nedeljkovic, said that the Penguins weren’t able to handle the momentum swing in the third period. He said they didn’t play simple enough.

Pettersson and Nedeljkovic are right: It should be an expectation that teams are going to make a push when they’re trailing. The Penguins have been in that same position many times.

That being said, if a team feels like it has to execute to perfection in order to win hockey games, it’s not exactly a sustainable recipe for success.

Even the best teams in hockey deal with some degree of adversity throughout the course of a game. It’s impossible to play a perfect 60 minutes. Yet, it seems like the Penguins tend to get burned on nearly all of their mistakes.

This team simply has to find a way to regroup if they make a mistake, even a costly one. That’s what separates the good teams from the bad ones. Good teams are able to take back any momentum lost from those moments.

Up to this point in the season, the Penguins have not been doing that with any degree of consistency. Critical mistakes are going to happen. Compounding critical mistakes simply cannot happen.

– On a positive note, Bunting finally registered his first goal of the season on an all-around beauty of a sequence from him, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Noel Acciari:

There was no player on the roster who needed a goal more than Bunting. Going into this game, he had just one point in 12 games, but he had started to look more like the player the Penguins traded for last spring over the last several games.

Hopefully, this goal gets him going and gives the Penguins more options as far as lineup deployment.

– Speaking of which, the top line of Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, and Rickard Rakell had yet another strong game.

Crosby, who was named the NHL’s third star of last week, registered his fifth goal in three games – and his eighth point in four games – to open the scoring for the Penguins early in the second period after a strong forechecking effort from Rakell. He now sits just two goals shy of 600.

Kyle Palmieri – a notable Penguins’ killer – tied the game midway through the period, but Malkin took the lead right back with a one-time power play rocket:

Since the power play is, essentially, the top line, I counted Malkin’s goal as part of the discussion. Eventually, this line is probably going to have to be separated to give the lineup more balance.

But, although the line did give up a few more chances than it has in recent games, they are still generating a silly amount of offense. Until Bryan Rust returns, I think this is something that has to stick for the Penguins.

– Although the bottom three lines aren’t generating much in terms of production right now, I actually think all three were pretty good in this game.

I like the fourth line of Blake Lizotte, Kevin Hayes, and Anthony Beauvillier. Having Lizotte on that line really makes a great deal of difference. He’s tenacious, he’s a good forechecker, and I really like what I’m seeing from his game. He’s also very good on the Penguins’ penalty kill.

I think Beauvillier has had a strong run of games as well, especially in the defensive zone. He also generated some chances, and he played well against his former team.

The second line of Drew O’Connor, Lars Eller, and Cody Glass had a really strong start to this game, but they did make a few mistakes later on. I’m not particularly impressed with O’Connor’s game as of late – particularly his defensive work – but that line seemed like it was clicking for the most part.

As for the third line? Acciari has been good for the Penguins, as has Bunting. And, if I were the coach, Puljujarvi wouldn’t be seeing the press box any time soon.

– The Penguins need to be better in shootouts.

I do think their goaltending in the shootout leaves something to be desired – Nedeljkovic would probably tell you he wants the Bo Horvat goal back. However, they could be doing themselves more favors with their deployment of shooters.

Rakell is nearly automatic and should be in every time. Same with Rust, when he’s healthy. It’s hard to argue about Crosby being included as well, despite his inconsistency in shootouts, where he has a career percentage of 39.1.

In this situation, I would have given Puljujarvi a shot over Letang. Letang was once pretty automatic in shootouts, but that hasn’t been the case since 2017-18, when he shot 50 percent. Since then, he hasn’t shot higher than 33.3 percent in a season.

Puljujarvi has hands and moves for days. Let him use them in these situations.

– For a closing word, I want to talk about the defensive core. I do think Erik Karlsson has been much, much better in this stretch of games. He’s been a big factor in the success of the top line as well, and he’s not making nearly as many mistakes. Him and Pettersson have largely been a positive these past three games.

However, I am a bit concerned with Kris Letang’s game. He isn’t generating much offensively. He has just two points in his last 10 games. The Penguins are regularly giving up more chances against than they are generating chances for when he is on the ice.

Even though Matt Grzelcyk has been a bit better in these last few and looks decent on the power play – he has four points in his last five games – I haven’t been encouraged by his play on the defensive side of the puck. The five-on-five pairing of him and Letang has been inconsistent, to say the least.

I’d give Grzelcyk a few more games, but I think it’s about time to reward Ryan Graves for his good play this season and give him a look with Letang, even just to see if it can spark something and help get Letang going. If it doesn’t work, it can be switched right back.

But, there’s no hurt in trying. Graves has earned it, and Letang needs to be better than he has been.