There was a lot that the Penguins liked from the final 40 minutes of Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the Washington Capitals. Sidney Crosby was sensational again. They had the puck in the offensive zone nearly twice as much as their visitors. And the team showed plenty of fight after face-planting out of the gate.
But that opening period? We’ll let Ryan Graves sum up those first 20 minutes.
“Obviously, the start’s unacceptable. That’s not the way we’re looking to do it,” the defenseman said. “It’s really hard to win games when that happens.”
Indeed. The Penguins fought back but couldn’t complete an improbable comeback after Tristan Jarry got pulled for allowing three goals on seven shots.
The Capitals scored on the game’s first shot, just 55 seconds in. Jarry’s attention appeared to be elsewhere. Perhaps Jarry was pondering why PPG Paints Arena was still blaring Christmas music before a game in January when he watched Tom Wilson sail a wrist shot past his blocker from 46 feet out.
Jarry’s jitters continued. He looked uncomfortable tracking pucks that ricocheted off the bouncy PPG Paints Arena end boards and nearly whiffed when, not under pressure at all, he tried to sweep a skittering puck to a teammate.
The Capitals made it 2-0 midway through the period when Beck Malenstyn’s pass hit the blade of Graves’ stick and ramped up over Jarry’s right shoulder.
Less than two minutes later, Jarry allowed another long-range shot to get through him. This time it was Capitals blue-liner Martin Fehervary who scored.
On the bench, Mike Sullivan immediately pivoted right and emphatically pointed to Alex Nedeljkovic, giving Jarry the hook for the third time this season.
Sullivan acknowledged that Jarry struggled, which partially prompted the change. But he also said he did it to give the guys in front of Jarry a needed jolt.
“I didn’t think the team had its best either, early in the game,” the coach said, before conceding that “we can’t spot a team those types of goals early on.”
A high percentage of Penguins fans inside the packed PPG Paints Arena cheered lustily when they saw Nedeljkovic pull on his mask and strap up his gloves. It got even louder when Nedeljkovic made an easy save seconds later.
Their reaction to the goalie change was a little surprising given that Jarry had won his previous two starts, including a shutout. But it spoke to how popular Nedeljkovic has become after only a dozen appearances in black and gold.
Nedeljkovic’s presence perked up the Penguins, too. But the Capitals made it 4-0 in the final minute of the first with a power-play goal from Alex Ovechkin.
Until Rickard Rakell beat Darcy Kuemper with a one-time rocket with four seconds left in the first period, nothing had gone the Penguins’ way. A rare Chad Ruhwedel goal was also taken off the scoreboard after an offsides challenge.
But Rakell’s tally, seemingly innocuous at the time, tipped this game onto its ear.
Crosby scored a power-play goal midway through the second period. The captain swatted a puck out of the air while falling back onto his fabled fanny.
After that beauty, the amped-up crowd chanted “Crosby’s better! Crosby’s better! Crosby’s better!” – a not-so-subtle shot at No. 8 on the visiting team.
Crosby wasn’t done. Late in the second, he sent Rasmus Sandin tumbling with a hip check behind the Capitals net. After creating that turnover, he slipped a sweet cross-crease pass through to Jake Guentzel, who made it 4-3.
“[Crosby] and his line were leading the way for us,” Lars Eller said. “They gave everything they had and we could expect from them. They played great.”
They helped the Penguins dominate that second period – Pittsburgh generated nine high-danger chances while allowing just one to the opposition, per Sportlogiq – to put the team in position to complete the comeback in the third.
“We had the ice slanted. We had a lot of pressure on them. Our power play scored,” Graves said. “We showed a lot of resilience to claw back in the game.”
But despite threatening on their pair of power-plays during the final 15 minutes, the Penguins couldn’t earn that equalizer on Kuemper and the Capitals.
“That’s what sucks, to battle back like that and come up short,” Crosby said.
The loss spoiled Bryan Rust’s return and snapped their win streak at three.
Ice chips
• Prior to going down Dec. 6 with an upper-body injury, Rust had combined with Crosby and Guentzel to form one of the NHL’s best lines. But with Rakell finally producing alongside Crosby and Guentzel, Sullivan instead put Rust on Evgeni Malkin’s wing in his first game back. Rust was a minus-1.
• To activate Rust, the Penguins sent Vinnie Hinostroza and Ryan Shea back to the American Hockey League and moved Matt Nieto to long-term injured reserve. Nieto’s return is not imminent. Sullivan said that Nieto, who has missed 14 games, remains in the off-ice phase of the return-to-play process.
• Graves was a minus-2 in the loss and got just three shifts in the third period.
• Nedeljkovic stopped 14 of 15 shots in relief. He faced only three in the third.
• The Penguins were 1 for 3 on the power play, with eight shots coming on the man advantage. They have nine power-play goals in their last 10 games.
• John Ludvig and Radim Zohorna were the two scratches. Ludvig participated in Tuesday’s morning skate but was held out due to an injury. With Ludvig sidelined, Pierre-Olivier Joseph was active for the first time since Dec. 16.
• Penguins winger Reilly Smith played in his 800th career game Tuesday.
• Valtteri Puustinen went to the dressing room during the first period and missed multiple shifts. But he returned that period and finished out the game.
Stat n’at
1.19 – expected goals total for the Capitals at all strengths, per Sportlogiq
They said it
“Everything went their way. Almost every other shot they had, they scored,” Eller said of the poor first period. “Once we got the first goal, we got some momentum. We never gave it back, but it wasn’t enough [for us] to score four.”
Coming up
The Penguins are scheduled to practice Wednesday in Cranberry before they head to Boston for Thursday’s game, their first versus the Bruins in 2023-24.
Matt Vensel: mvensel@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mattvensel
First Published: January 3, 2024, 3:24 a.m.
Updated: January 3, 2024, 3:25 a.m.
