A lot went wrong for the Penguins in their 4-3 overtime win over the Red Wings tonight at PPG Paints Arena that was out of their control.
The most unbelievable might have been the Red Wings’ second-period goal that tied the game at 2-2. It started out as a routine dump-in from Ben Chiarot, one that happens a number of times every game and just rims around the boards 99.9% of the time. When Arturs Silovs left the net to play the puck behind the net, he was doing the mundane, right thing.
But the dump-in somehow hit the PPG Paints Arena end boards in just the right spot, at just the right angle, that it didn’t rim around at all, and instead rebounded right to an open Andrew Copp in the slot, who had a wide-open net right in front of him:
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“A lot of things happened which shouldn’t happen,” Silovs said of the game. “The bounce from the boards, they score a weird goal.”
“And then they get like, I don’t know, eight, nine power plays,” Silovs added. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Every single call is a PK.”
Silovs is forgiven for losing count — it was a whopping seven calls on the Penguins that included a double-minor, so eight full power plays for the Red Wings. The ones that were unearned changed the flow of the game and gave the Red Wings momentum, and the ones that were very well-earned but well-intentioned proved to be the most costly.
Some of the calls were absolutely phantom calls. Parker Wotherspoon’s roughing call on Michael Rasmussen? It was so ambiguous that it almost seemed as if the call was on Rasmussen first, given that he was the one who ran into Wotherspoon and initiated contact. The tripping call on Blake Lizotte in the third period? His offense was having his stick near J.T. Compher’s shins when Compher went down on his own during a puck battle. The non-calls on Detroit added up — including an egregious one where Rickard Rakell was tackled onto the ice — and frustration grew, resulting in Bryan Rust getting an unsportsmanlike conduct call for his outburst at the officials.
“It’s the way it goes sometimes,” Erik Karlsson told me of the officiating. “We did our best in staying in it, it took a toll on a lot of guys that kill penalties. Some guys had trouble finding a rhythm.”
Crosby expressed a similar view about the way the game was called, saying “some games happen like that.”
“We’re not going to agree with all the calls and officials aren’t perfect,” Crosby said. “We’re not perfect. I think it’s one of those nights where it feels like they’re going against you. … Some nights it happens like that, and you’ve just got to deal with it. We did a good job of just sticking with it.”
Dan Muse noted the impact the penalties had, especially early — it’s not just hard on the penalty-killers. It’s hard on everyone, because it disrupts the normal flow of lines and distribution of ice time.
“There are things you can control and things you can’t,” Muse said. “You’ve got to control that when we do have to kill penalties, we go out there and do a good job. If you sit for a little while, you’ve got to find a way to get into the game. And I thought guys did a pretty good job of that tonight.”
The Penguins did well in killing all the unlucky, wishy-washy penalties. But the Red Wings capitalized on the two most undeniable penalties the Penguins took.
After Sidney Crosby scored twice in the first six minutes of the game, the Red Wings got some life after Tommy Novak got careless — but not malicious — with his stick, and got Patrick Kane in the mouth and drew blood. James van Riemsdyk scored on the first half of the ensuing double-minor.
Lizotte put the Penguins ahead with a hard-fought goal with 4:09 to go in regulation, but the Penguins couldn’t hold on. Only 23 seconds later, Jack St. Ivany seemed to panic with the puck under pressure and put it over the glass in the Penguins’ end, earning an obvious delay of game penalty. Alex DeBrincat quickly scored on the ensuing Detroit power play. Of course, it was a but of a weird bounce, too — the initial shot missed the net, and he was in position to pick it up behind the net and tap it in.
The Penguins held on for the final three minutes of regulation, and Kris Letang didn’t waste time in overtime, scoring the game-winner 58 seconds into the extra frame.
“Even though they tied it late, we stuck with it,” Karlsson said.
It would have been hard to say at any point in the game after that hot start that the Penguins were the better team — they rarely had an opportunity to even build sustained momentum with the weird flow of the game. And during the Penguins’ lowest of lows this season, that would have been enough for an easy loss. Everything going against them? They would have sat back and watched Detroit take over.
The Penguins’ fight in this one — the way they refused to get beaten down by a one-in-a-million goal against, or the extremely odd officiating — made this one of the more encouraging wins the Penguins have put together as of late.
“We grinded for every little inch that we got tonight,” Letang said. “We stayed with it. Could have been frustrating, but we did a pretty good job.”
“You know, there’s a big resilient group here right now,” Silovs said. “Credit to the guys killing the penalties, blocking shots and managing to finish it in OT.”
The adversity the Penguins had to battle through, the way that they needed everyone from their top line, their fourth line, their goaltender and Letang in overtime to come together, almost seemed to make the win more rewarding than had this been a big blowout victory.
“Just jubilation,” Lizotte said of the feeling when Letang’s overtime winner sealed it. “I’m really proud of the way the guys bounced back tonight, whether it be tough calls or bounces off the dash or in front of the net, we didn’t let it get to us. We just kept putting our best foot forward after each bad bounce.”