The Pittsburgh Penguins suffered a disappointing 6-2 road loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday.
Pittsburgh trailed 3-2 going into the third period, but the Golden Knights scored three times, including an empty-netter in the third period, to lose 6-2. It was a disappointing loss for the Penguins, and defenseman Ryan Shea felt like the team made too many mistakes.
“I think way too many turnovers at both blue lines,” Shea said postgame on Thursday. “I think that it was especially more (troublesome) at the offensive blue lines. We kind of just shot ourselves in the foot.”
Ben Kindel scored with less than four minutes to go in the second period to give some Pittsburgh confidence. However, the Penguins came out flat in the third period, which was an issue.
“We came out at the third period flat,” Shea said. “The second period is kind of the template we need to play with. You could see we were on them. That’s what is going to happen, we are going to get opportunities. Then in the third, we just came out flat.”
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Penguins head coach Dan Muse, meanwhile, was also disappointed with the team’s defensive play in their road loss to the Golden Knights.
You look at the goals, I know I’ve used this term before, they were loud,” said Muse. “I think the biggest takeaway from the defensive side is we have to cut down on those big ones.”
With the loss, Pittsburgh fell to 32-18-5 but remains in second place in the Metro division. The Penguins will return to the ice on Saturday on the road against the Utah Mammoth.
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