Same forwards and defensemen for the Penguins as yesterday’s meltdown, rookie Sergei Murashov is pressed into action since Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak are still tied up with their paperwork coming into America.
The visiting Utah Mammoth make their first appearance known as the Mammoth in Pittsburgh with this lineup.
You never know what is going to happen in a Penguin game, so you’d better not miss much. Pittsburgh gets the first goal just 48 seconds into the game when Justin Brazeau’s centering pass jumps off a Utah player and into the net. Sure. 1-0 home team early.
After the great setup on the opening goal, Ben Kindel heads to the penalty box to give the Mammoth the first crack at the power play. Their power play does not look in good condition, multiple clears by the Pens makes short work of it.
The Pens get a power play of their own, not much to write about.
Utah the better of the teams for most of the period but Murashov is there to tend the goal.
The Mammoth turn the puck over on a failed breakout and out of no where Bryan Rust gains control deep in the offensive zone. He just kinda flicks a shot and the goalie Vejmelka isn’t sharp enough to get all of it and the puck slips in. 2-0 game.
Sidney Crosby draws a power play on the rush when his old teammate Ian Cole piefaces him with a free hand.
Shots are 8-6 Utah, which sounds close enough. Shot attempts are 24-9 Utah, painting a better picture of where the puck was for a lot of the period.
The game settles in, an opportunistic Penguin move creates another goal. Ben Kindel changes on the fly and due to the bench alignment in the second period is behind all the Utah defense. Ryan Shea hits Kindel with a long stretch pass and it’s a free and clear breakaway. Kindel makes no mistake on the right-glove catching Vejmelka to shoot to his blocker side and extend the score to a dangerous 3-0 lead, considering how the Penguins have been going at this point..
Ville Koivunen is off to the penalty box for hooking, Murashov makes a huge save on Michael Carcone to help the kill out.
The Pens keep playing with fire in terms of going short-handed, this time it’s Connor Clifton off for two minutes. Pittsburgh again survives.
Not a lot of offense for Pittsburgh, just three shots on the period compared with 10 for the Mammoth. The mammoth performer so far has been Murashov, stopping all 18 shots his way so far. Pittsburgh up 3-0, which should be comfortable but can’t be with the form this club has been in.
Oh boy, Utah opens the door 1:07 in. The sequence is started with the forwards changing and Parker Wotherspoon advanced the puck instead of hanging back and waiting for reinforcements. The Pens never touch it again. JJ Peterka throws a puck on the net, the rebound kicks out to Nate Schmidt and Murashov can’t recover in time. 3-1.
Right off the next faceoff, it happens again. Carcone races around Clifton and shoots one that Murashov can’t control. 3-2 game. Uh oh.
Pittsburgh goes to the timeout to calm things down. Doesn’t really w0rk. Utah scores another with 14:25 to go. Ryan Graves pushes into Kevin Stenlund in front of the net but doesn’t remove him. Sean Durzi uses the screen to fire in a goal. Out of desperation, the Pens challenge for goalie interference. Stenlund’s skate is in the blue paint but he doesn’t really physically interfere with the goalie, the refs find. Good goal and Pittsburgh is penalized for delay of game.
Carcone makes Pittsburgh pay for the challenge with a power play goal. Murashov is sinking, not square to the shot, but Shea and the PK are letting any and everything through too. 4-3 Utah.
Bad gets worse when Rust is sent off for hooking. Durzi did clamp down on Rust’s stick but it has to get up there in the first place to make that happen. Pittsburgh kills it off at least.
There’s still some fight in the Pens, their second line gets a good shift and Brazeau tips in an Erik Karlsson point shot to tie the game back up. 4-4 with 5:54 to play.
It’s Pittsburgh looking as good as they have for a sustained bit in a while with Kindel and his line leading the charge to find a late winner, but regulation expires first.
Kindel starts OT with Rakell and Karlsson. Kindel wins the faceoff but turns the puck over to the wrong guy. Dylan Guenter motors in alone and shoots a long-rage shot that beats Murashov. That kind of day for the Pens, which ends in a loss.
Haven’t always liked Rust’s total game this season at times given away from the puck play, but he’s winding into form now and the offensive contributions can’t be denied. Today’s goal marked the third in a row that he’s found the back of the net, and he’s got six points in the last three. With Malkin out and Rakell still working on his timing and game form, the Pens need Rust at the top of his game, he hasn’t disappointed lately.Good to see Brazeau score a goal for the first time in his return from injury in his fifth game back, let alone add another huge goal in the third period to tie the game back up. Overall it’s his first goals since October 28th. The Pens improve to 5-1-3 on the season when Brazeau records a point which I’d bet is starting to get out of just being random noise. They’re probably going to do well on that day when players like Brazeau are producing. Today of course falls into that coulda/shoulda/woulda category that’s growing too much.That’s two games in a row with a primary assist for Kindel (and another in the third period) to double his season output of assists from three to six after this weekend. All three assists of the recent helpers came at even strength, where he only had one ES assist the entire season as of yesterday morning. The upgrade in QoT to not play with the Tomasino/Koivunen/Novak types these days are starting to pay off.And how about that breakaway goal for Kindel? Sometimes back pressure makes that a different situation from penalty shots but in this one Kindel knew he had all the time in the world, made a deke and confident, strong shot that scored. Pittsburgh shouldn’t play another shootout in the foreseeable future where they don’t pick Kindel to go out there for it. He might not be a mortal lock to score but he’s shown more in this (and winning the team shootout competition last month in Sweden) to be involved.Another maddening collapse, the Pens were flirting with disaster all game but were able to survive for a while with Murashov making a pair of saves from the puck hitting the top of his stick. Add in some penalty kill time, minimal offensive pressure and spending way too much time in their own end and well, who needs to explain it when it’s happened so often lately.You can understand the helpless Muse trying to empty the tank with timeout usage and challenges just in case, but nothing is working anywhere to prevent the collapses. It might not have even mattered but I didn’t like that specific challenge, there was not a lot there to review besides Graves not being good at defense and it served up a golden chance to fall behind. Which they did. So even the coaching inputs are hurting more than helping at this point.By the first TV timeout in the third period Utah had 4 goals since intermission, the Penguins had 2 shots. Uuuuuuuugly.Given how bad the Pens have been with leads lately, this might be one of the few times you could accurately say with a straight face that it’s a wonder that the team up 3-0 at the start of the third period even made it to overtime considering that they were losing 4-3 fairly deep into the game. Stealing this one would have been nice to steady the ship, but frankly considering the 37-16 shot differential, it’s not a game that they exactly deserved to win following another backbreaking collapse.
Checking the schedule it’s Edmonton up next for Tuesday. That will have some extra attention on it, given the swap of goalies between the two teams.