Power-play futility continues as Penguins fall to Flyers in shootout
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Four months into his tenure as an employee of the Pittsburgh Penguins, defenseman Erik Karlsson was eager for his first encounter with the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena.
After all, it is one of the NHL’s most prominent rivalries.
“We’re fighting for our position in the standings and they’re doing the same,” Karlsson said following the morning skate. “You can’t line it up any better on a Saturday night.”
Nothing lined up in the Penguins’ favor on Saturday as they lost 4-3 in a shootout.
Flyers forward Sean Couturier scored the lone goal in the shootout.
While they made a valiant effort to force the game to go beyond the bounds of regulation, the Penguins’ malfunctions on the power play throughout the entire 65 minutes led to them ultimately losing.
In total, the Penguins were 0 for 5 on the power play and gave up a short-handed goal in the third frame that allowed the Flyers to tie the game.
In contrast, the Flyers were 1 for 4 with the man advantage, their lone goal coming after their short-handed goal.
Saturday’s futility marked 10 consecutive games without a power-play score for the Penguins, a team with a roster that is stacked with all-star caliber talent.
“Everybody that’s involved is really invested and everybody cares about what’s going on there,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “The players that are on it are proud guys, and so, obviously the fact that we haven’t got some traction with it, we haven’t got it going yet, is a little bit disappointing for all of us.”
Equally disappointing from a more micro-focused perspective was a lack of urgency for the home team on Saturday.
Coming off a thrilling 4-2 road victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, the Penguins were largely flat against their most enduring rivals.
“I don’t think they saw our best at all tonight,” Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson said. “It was kind of low energy from us. It’s tough. We get a great (win) in Tampa. We should be excited for this one. We didn’t get anything going. Didn’t create enough zone time in their end and didn’t create energy off of that and get the crowd into it.”
Flyers coach John Tortorella used a medical term — if you’re a profane urologist — to explain his team’s energy.
“We win the game because we’ve got (courage),” Tortorella said. “We do. We do stupid stuff. We don’t make some plays sometimes. … A number of things that we have to work on and try to get consistent at, but one thing we do have is (courage).”
Both teams looked as though they were laboring through hernias in the first 34 minutes of regulation as the contest was largely a tepid staring contest with neither team posing much of an offensive threat.
The stalemate was broken at 14:31 of the second period.
From his own left circle, Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim jabbed at a ping-ponging puck in a poor clearing attempt that was intercepted by Penguins defenseman Kris Letang at the left point. Surveying his options, Letang slid a pass attempt to the top of the crease intended for forward Jake Guentzel. Sanheim intervened again but wound up inadvertently deflecting the puck with his stick over rookie goaltender Samuel Ersson’s glove on the far side. Letang was credited with his second goal of the season. There were no assists.
Only 2:16 later, Flyers forward Owen Tippett scored his eighth goal on a breakaway to tie the game.
Off a faceoff win in the Flyers’ left circle by Penguins forward Sidney Crosby, Karlsson forced a pass attempt to the slot for Guentzel but had it intercepted by Flyers forward Tyson Foerster, who lobbed a breakout pass to the center red line for Tippett, who took off and sprinted between Karlsson and Pettersson. Dragging the puck from behind him to the offensive blue line, Tippett attacked the cage and lanced a backhander by goaltender Tristan Jarry’s blocker. Foerster had the lone assist.
The Penguins reclaimed the lead 110 seconds into the third period via Guentzel’s eighth goal.
After a strong forecheck by Crosby to maintain possession in the offensive zone, Penguins forward Bryan Rust banked the puck off the end boards to the right half-wall. From there, Karlsson settled the puck and snapped it to the far side of the crease, where Guentzel burrowed his way past Flyers defenseman Marc Staal. Maintaining position, Guentzel was able to deflect the puck with the outside of his right skate by Ersson’s left leg. Karlsson and Rust registered assists.
A marvelous opportunity to secure victory was granted to the Penguins after Flyers forward Nicolas Deslauriers boarded Penguins defenseman Ryan Graves at 5:02 of the second period. But on the ensuing power play, the Penguins managed to give up a short-handed goal to Flyers forward Scott Laughton at the 7:01 mark.
From his own left corner, Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler banked the puck off the near boards to clear the puck. Rust leaped in the air to glove the puck down but only disrupted it slightly, causing it to bounce into the neutral zone. An exhausted Malkin, at the end of a lengthy shift, was unable to corral the puck and allowed an aggressive Laughton to claim possession. Swerving his way in from the right wing, Laughton approached the cage, jammed up Jarry with a handful of moves and lifted a wrister by his blocker for his second goal. Seeler had the only assist.
The Flyers capitalized on a power-play opportunity to claim their first lead when Foerster scored his fourth goal at 13:52 of the third period.
Taking a pass in the high slot, York offloaded it to Foerster above the left circle. Maneuvering into the circle with little resistance, Foerster gripped and ripped a wrister that scorched Jarry’s right shoulder on the near side.
The Penguins persisted and tied the game in the dying seconds of regulation when Guentzel scored again on a goal-mouth scramble at 19:39 of the third frame.
With Jarry pulled for an extra attacker, Malkin collected a loose puck on the right half wall of the offensive zone and dished it to Karlsson at the near point. Shuffling to the center point, Karlsson moved the puck back to Malkin above the right circle. Hesitating for a moment, Malkin chipped a pass to the slot, where Rust deflected it on net with the backhand side of his stick. Ersson made the initial save but the rebound squirted to the right, where Guentzel was able to backhand it by the goaltender’s blocker. Rust and Malkin had assists.
The Penguins’ fifth power-play opportunity came late in the overtime period when the Flyers were called for too many men at the four-minute mark. With luminaries such as Crosby, Guentzel, Malkin and Karlsson on the ice for a four-on-three scenario, the Penguins managed only one shot on five attempts (two misses and two blocks).
In the shootout, Couturier beat Jarry while Forester and Flyers forward Travis Konecny were rejected. Meanwhile, Ersson denied Guentzel, Crosby and Rust on their attempts.
It was an unappetizing conclusion to a game that started off with a sour beginning.
“It was our start,” Pettersson said. “We didn’t get the crowd involved coming from a two-game road trip. Saturday night, it was packed in there. A rivalry game like that. We didn’t do a good enough job of creating zone time and getting on top of them and creating energy that way. Our start really killed our energy.”
Jarry made 29 saves on 32 shots in regulation and overtime as his record slipped to 8-8-2.
A rematch with the Flyers on Monday in Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center awaits.
There is no shortage of improvements the Penguins can make leading into that contest with their rivals.
“We just weren’t good enough (Saturday) and it started from the beginning,” Guentzel said. “We got them again on Monday and it’s another big game. They’re ahead of us in the standings, so we just got to be a lot better.”
Notes:
• Penguins forward Joona Koppanen, recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League on Saturday morning, made his Penguins debut. Logging 7:14 of ice time on 11 shifts, Koppanen had one shot and was 0 for 2 on faceoffs. He primarily centered the fourth line with Radim Zohorna and Vinnie Hinostroza on his wings.
• Koppanen became the 30th player in franchise history to wear No. 15 in a game of consequence. His predecessors:
Bob Dillabough, Billy Harris, George Swarbrick, Steve Cardwell, Lowell MacDonald, Yvon Labre, Brian McKenzie, Rick Kessell, Bob McManama, Stan Gilbertson, Pat Boutette, Gary Rissling, Randy Cunneyworth, Dave Capuano, Doug Smith, Randy Gilhen, Shawn McEachern, Dmitri Mironov, Josef Beranek, Robert Dome, Roman Simicek, Wayne Primeau, Brian Holzinger, Niklas Nordgren, Michael Zigomanis, Dustin Jeffrey, Tanner Glass, Riley Sheahan, Josh Archibald
• Guentzel (441 points) surpassed defenseman Paul Coffey (440) for 12th place on the franchise’s career scoring list.