They were the first words out of Penguins coach Mike Sullivan’s mouth late Monday.
He could’ve quit right there, honestly. Pretty much hit the nail on the head, even if his team couldn’t hit the net with a puck for much of this one.
“We weren’t very good,” Sullivan said. “You know, we weren’t very good.”
It’s tough to argue. The Penguins were lousy and fortunate to leave PPG Paints Arena with a 5-3 win over the Nashville Predators in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
Somehow.
Despite blowing a three-goal lead.
Forget dictating terms. Despite failing to register a shot on goal for a stretch of exactly 37 minutes that bridged all three periods and accounted for more than 60 percent of the entire game.
“This team usually, for the most part, is pretty good at making sure that we’re continuing to play the game the right way,” Sullivan said. “Tonight, that wasn’t the case. We just weren’t very good.”
Before getting too specific, Jake Guentzel bailed the Penguins out with what turned out to be the game-winning goal at 16:43 of the third period. Nick Bonino tacked on an empty-netter.
The Penguins lead the series, 1-0, with Game 2 back here on Wednesday. The winner of Game 1 has won the Stanley Cup 78 percent of the time.
Nearly falling into an early series hole can be attributed to a few primary factors:
• The Penguins lost the special teams battle. Nashville went 2 for 3 on the power play, the same unit that converted that many times on 22 chances last round. After allowing just one power-play goal against Ottawa, Ryan Ellis and Colton Sissons made the Penguins pay.
• Nashville’s defense did something drastically different than what the Penguins saw from the Senators: They played aggressive. It forced the Penguins forwards to make quick decisions with the puck, and that did not end well.
“Their D played pretty much in your face,” Bonino said. “They make you dump the puck poorly. When you do, [goaltender Pekka] Rinne plays it really well. It’s tough to establish a forecheck like that. It’s tough to get odd-man rushes like that.”
Or, evidently, shots on goal.
Get this: The Penguins only attempted 11 shots in the first, six in the second and 11 more in the third.
According to Penguins historian Bob Grove, their 12 shots on goal were the Penguins’ fewest ever in a playoff game.
“I think they out-played us for most of the night,” Justin Schultz said. “We can’t expect to win if we play like that.”
• Winning like this might also bring about questions of whether the Penguins are tired. Nobody has played more hockey since the start of last season. Nashville (six) had twice as many days off before this one.
Olli Maatta didn’t want to hear about fatigue being an excuse.
“It shouldn’t be,” he said.
Still, Nashville was clearly the more energetic team.
“We talked a lot about our compete level,” Maatta said. “We didn’t bring it today.”
• Guentzel’s goal could be a template. Matt Cullen made a smart chip play off the wall, allowing Guentzel to enter the offensive zone with speed.
When the Penguins are humming, that’s what they do. It didn’t happen, however, for enough of Monday’s game.
The Penguins will also look to eliminate the number of stretch passes they used in this one.
“That’s our game — playing fast,” Schultz said of the last goal. “When we’re doing it, we’re creating stuff. We didn’t use our speed. Our defensemen weren’t moving it up quick enough or joining the attack. It’s everyone. We have to be better.”
A disallowed goal at 7:13 of the first period swung the momentum in the Penguins’ favor, as officials ruled Filip Forsberg was offside after a Sullivan challenge.
That triggered a run of goals by Evgeni Malkin, Conor Sheary and Bonino in a stretch of 4:11, but that’s when the shots on goal stopped coming.
“We were yelling at everyone to shoot the puck,” Sheary recalled. “Rinne hadn’t seen one in a while. Maybe would catch him by surprise.”
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Ellis scored midway through the second, and Sissons and Frederick Gaudreau tied it in the third before the Penguins woke up.
“You never think you’re going to blow a three-goal lead,” Bonino said. “When we did, we almost knew it was coming. It wasn’t like it snuck up on us. We knew they were coming. We weren’t playing well. It woke us up a bit, then Jake saved us there. Times like that you just have to keep playing hard, stay focused, and it worked out for us.”
The challenge for the Penguins will be internalizing what went wrong in this one, correcting the mistakes Tuesday at practice and avoiding a repeat performance Wednesday.
“We trust the leadership of the group that we have, that they get it,” Sullivan said. “They understand. They know we weren’t at our best. We had that discussion after the game.
“This is something we’ll learn from and we’ll try to make sure that we respond the right way for Game 2.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: May 30, 2017, 1:25 a.m.
