Jamie Oleksiak needed fewer than 10 words to properly summate the Penguins’ 4-3 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils on Friday at PPG Paints Arena.
“Kind of bittersweet point,” Oleksiak said, “but we’ll take it.”
In a tight Metropolitan Division race, of course the Penguins will take it.
Because of the point they picked up — thanks to third-period goals from Brian Dumoulin and Phil Kessel — the Penguins (42-27-6) have 90 points, one more than Columbus for second place in the division. They’re three shy of the Capitals, who have a game in hand.
Take the point, yes. But where? That’s the question you should be asking after this two-face of a game, one that ended when Taylor Hall scored on a breakaway 27 seconds into overtime.
If the Penguins wind up playing the speedy Devils in the first round, perhaps not far. The Penguins are 0-2-1 against them this season, although this was the best of the three.
The bigger issue here is the Penguins defense and how it badly it struggled in the second period.
“We have individual breakdowns or lack attention to detail,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “As a result, we give up a couple of high-quality chances, and they end up in the back of our net.”
So go ahead and focus on how the Penguins righted themselves for the third and started playing with a greater sense or urgency. Or talk about their first 10 minutes — as good as any we’ve seen since the calendar flipped to 2018.
It probably won’t make you feel better about the defense. Is what the Penguins did against the Devils in the second period good enough to drive this team to another Stanley Cup? Likely not.
Take Will Butcher’s power-play goal at 5:15 of the second period to make it 1-1, a blast from atop the left circle.
Give Matt Murray the benefit of the doubt. Normally he stops that. But it came while the Penguins were killing a penalty, an area that has been trending downward.
That’s the fifth time in six games the Penguins have allowed a power-play goal, and that unit is clicking at just 65.7 percent (23 for 35) since the NHL trade deadline.
“I have to get in front of that shot there,” Oleksiak said, blaming himself.
Oleksiak is hardly the only one — or only thing — at fault when the Penguins are short a man or two.
Blake Coleman made it 2-1 at 7:20 of the second period with a terrific, backhanded effort, but the problem was that the Penguins didn’t have a single defenseman back. Only Derick Brassard. Olli Maatta and Kris Letang were caught up ice.
On the Devils goal that made it 3-1, Dumoulin, Letang and every other Penguin on the ice lost track of one of the NHL’s best rookies, Nico Hischier, who finished easily in front of Murray at 8:54 — New Jersey’s third goal in 3:39.
“We have mental lapses for short periods of time, and it’s costing us,” Sullivan said. “You can’t have them at this time of year.”
Not if you want to make a run at the division.
Or if you want to keep your coach sane.
Since playing what many Penguins called their best defensive game of the season March 11 against Dallas, the Penguins have done the following:
• Took their foot off the gas in the third period in Manhattan
• Endured a wretched start in Montreal
• Were stuck in the mud for nearly 60 minutes in Brooklyn
• Had another mid-game snooze back at home against the Canadiens
Roll that together, and you have win-overtime loss-win-regulation loss-win-overtime loss over the past six. That’s hardly building momentum entering the postseason.
But the question with this team — and many Penguins teams throughout the years — is this: Does it matter?
“We knew we had better,” Sidney Crosby said of the discussion after the second period. “We needed to be more like the first period. We felt like if we did that, we gave ourselves a chance to get back in the game. That’s what we did. We played with urgency, played tough in our own and got chances the other way because of it.”
There’s so much to like offensively about this team. Kessel’s goal was his 30th, the sixth time for him hitting that mark, and he has a career-high now with 83 points.
This was the rare point-less game for Evgeni Malkin in 2018, as he’s been the league’s best player since Jan. 1, while Crosby scored for the second consecutive game. Sullivan even liked the results when he flipped Patric Hornqvist and Bryan Rust at right wing late.
At the start of this one, the Penguins overwhelmed the Devils, accounting for 10 of the first 12 shots on goal. They held a 43-34 edge for the game and produced a 76-55 lead in attempts.
The Penguins can score pretty much every other NHL team out of the building, especially when it’s PPG Paints Arena, where they’ve still won 15 of 17 and averaged 4.4 goals per game while doing it.
There also seems to be a general sense around this club right now that everybody is ready to just start the stinkin’ playoffs already.
Like Oleksiak said, the Penguins will take the point. But how their defense reacts to this recent run could determine where exactly that turns out to be.
“Points are huge right now,” Dumoulin said. “We saw what we can do in the third period when we apply pressure to teams while working as a five-man unit.
“If we keep doing that, we see the result. I think we need to do that for a full three periods.”
Around the boards
Crosby has scored the first goal of a game 10 times against New Jersey, most of any opponent. … Murray’s seven-game home winning streak came to a close. … The Penguins have three players with 80 or more points, the first time since 2000-01 that’s happened.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: March 24, 2018, 1:55 a.m.
Updated: March 24, 2018, 3:09 a.m.
