Same old story: Penguins lose to Islanders Latest example of glaring issue

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

“It sucks. It’s frustrating,” Nedeljkovic said. “We played great the first two periods, and I thought we took it to them, 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 all season long, going back a few years. They led 2–1 heading into the final frame, and Michael Bunting scored his first goal of the season at 7:44 of the third period, putting the Penguins ahead by two.

Just one minute and 57 seconds later, the Islanders scored their second goal of the game. And in the space of three minutes and seven seconds, that lead was gone as the Islanders defeated the Penguins in a shootout, 4-3.

Not only have the Penguins found a way to score multiple goals in the third period, they’ve done it quickly multiple times this season, almost as if they can’t regroup after giving up the first goal. They haven’t been able to find a way to hang on when teams start applying pressure.

And this, as Nedeljkovic noted, is simply unacceptable.

“You have to expect them to come out with a push,” he said. “I mean, Montreal came out with a push last week. Anaheim, same thing, like… teams are obviously going to push back, and I don’t know if maybe we handled that the best. I think we we’ve moved away from what made us successful the first two periods, and it’s hard to play that way. It’s not that we gave up a lot, it was just not great what we gave up, and I did the first two periods didn’t really give up much.”

Head coach Mike Sullivan didn’t hold back either.

“We just have to play better,” Sullivan said. “We should have played the way we played in the first two periods, and that would have 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 said the Penguins couldn’t 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 were sloppy with the puck. We turned the puck over a few times and they probably got four or five shots on goal and maybe a couple of scoring opportunities. Other than that shift, they didn’t have much. And from our point of view, I thought we controlled most of the game. We had chances to open the game, but we couldn’t.

Marcus Pettersson, like Nedeljkovic, said the Penguins couldn’t handle the momentum swing in the third period. He said they weren’t playing simple enough.

Pettersson and Nedeljkovic are right: the expectation should be that teams will push forward when they are behind. The Penguins have often been in the same position.

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

Even the best hockey teams face some adversity during a game. It’s impossible to play the perfect sixty minutes. Still, it seems like the Penguins tend to get burned by almost all of their mistakes.

This team simply needs to find a way to regroup when they make a mistake, even a costly one. That’s what separates the good teams from the bad ones. Good teams are able to regain the lost momentum of those moments.

So far in the season, the Penguins haven’t done that with any degree of consistency. Critical mistakes are going to happen. Increasing critical errors simply cannot happen.

– On the plus side, Bunting finally registered his first goal of the season on an all-round beauty of a series from him, Jesse Puljujarvi and Noel Acciari:

There wasn’t a player on the roster who needed a goal more than Bunting. Coming into this game, he had just one point in 12 games, but he was starting to look more like the player the Penguins traded for last spring.

Hopefully this goal will get him going and give the Penguins more options in terms of lineup.

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

Crosby, who was named the NHL’s third star last week, recorded 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 forecheck from Rakell. He is now just two goals away from 600.

Kyle Palmieri – a notable Penguins killer – tied the game midway through the period, but Malkin took back the lead 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. Ultimately, this line will probably have to be separated to give the setup more balance.

But while the line had a few more chances than in recent games, they still generate a ridiculous amount of fouls. Until Bryan Rust returns, I think this is something that should continue for the Penguins.

– While the bottom three lines don’t add up to much in terms of production right now, I actually think all three were pretty good in this game.

I love the Fourth Line by Blake Lizotte, Kevin Hayes, and Anthony Beauvillier. The fact that Lizotte is on that line really makes a big difference. He’s tenacious, he’s a good passer and I really like what I see of his game. He is also very good on the Penguins penalty kill.

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

The second line of Drew O’Connor, Lars Eller and Cody Glass had a very strong start to this game, but made a few mistakes later. I haven’t been particularly impressed with O’Connor’s play lately – especially his defensive work – but that line has seemed to click for the most part.

As for the third rule? Acciari was good for the Penguins, as was Bunting. And if I were the coach, Puljujarvi wouldn’t see the press box anytime soon.

-The Penguins need to be better in shootouts.

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

Rakell is almost automatic and should be in every time. Same with Rust, if he’s healthy. It’s hard to argue against 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 chance over Letang. Letang was once quite 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 movements for days. Let him use them in these situations.

– In closing, I would like to talk about the defensive core. I think Erik Karlsson has been much, much better in this part of the games. He’s also been a huge factor in the top line’s success, and he doesn’t make nearly as many mistakes. He and Pettersson have been largely positive over the last three games.

However, I’m a little concerned about Kris Letang’s play. He doesn’t generate much offensively. He has just two points from his last ten games. The Penguins regularly give up more chances than they generate when he’s on the ice.

Even though Matt Grzelcyk has been a bit better over the last few games and is looking good with his power play (he has four points in his last five games), I’m not encouraged by his play on the defensive side of the puck. The five-on-five combination between him and Letang was inconsistent, to say the least.

I would give Grzelcyk a few more games, but I think it’s time to reward Ryan Graves for his good play this season and let him take a look at Letang, if only to see if it can spark something and Letang can help get started. If it doesn’t work, it can be switched back immediately.

But it doesn’t hurt to try. Graves has earned it, and Letang has to be better than him.