For the second night in a row and the seventh time in nine games since the holiday break, the Pittsburgh Penguins came out on the wrong side of the scoreboard.
And, on Sunday, it certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort.
The Penguins dropped another Eastern Conference matchup, 5-2, to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The score was tied, 2-2, midway through the third period. Rickard Rakell and Kevin Hayes – on the power play – had tallies for the Penguins, and Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov were on the board for the Lightning.
However, with under four minutes remaining in regulation, Kucherov capitalized late after Noel Acciari whiffed on an attempted breakout pass to put the Bolts ahead, 3-2.
Anthony Cirelli and Nick Paul added empty-net goals at the end to seal the contest.
“It’s tough,” goaltender Tristan Jarry said. “A loss is a loss at the end of the day, but I thought the team played well. We did a good job. We were in their zone most of the night. Just the chances that Tampa got were good chances. They were grade-A chances. That’s what it was tonight.”
For most of the game, Pittsburgh did outplay Tampa. The Penguins dominated the first period, outshooting the Bolts, 15-2, and tcontrolling play. The trouble is that – just like on Nov. 19 – they only had one goal to show for it in that first period.
For the rest of the game, they still had a lot of chances and mostly controlled play, aside from the second half of the second period. They outshot Tampa, 33-19. They played a mostly strong defensive game aside from a few miscues, and the opportunistic Lightning simply buried those – namely the Kucherov goal.
They probably deserved a better fate, but all they can do is control what’s in front of them.
“Obviously, it’s easy to say that, maybe, we deserved that one,” said Philip Tomasino, who played in his first game since Jan. 3. “But, gotta give them credit. They played hard, too. If we continue to play that way, I think we’re going to win most games.”
Here are a few other notes and observations from this one:
– This was a gut-wrenching loss for the Penguins. Things haven’t gone their way since the holiday break, and they’ve had a good habit this season of coming back strong after bad losses like the one against Ottawa on Saturday.
The truth is, they did come out strong. As mentioned before, they mostly controlled play. They were disciplined and didn’t surrender a Tampa Bay power play the entire evening. Most of the game was played on their terms.
But they just…