After going 2-1 in the first three games of their current seven-game, 15-day road trip, the Pittsburgh Penguins were publicly given a chance by their GM, Kyle Dubas, to make some noise on the rest of the trip and go from there.
Unfortunately, they have not passed the test. Not at all.
In the three games since – all against non-playoff teams – the Penguins have gone 0-3 and have been outscored 11-3, all against teams that have a high degree of difficulty scoring goals.
Most recently – on Monday – the Penguins lost, 2-1, to the San Jose Sharks, which is the league’s worst team by points percentage. Going into their matchup with the Penguins, they had 34 points – 14 less than Pittsburgh – and had a league-worst goal differential of minus-58.
After the loss, the Penguins now have the sixth-worst points percentage in the NHL, and they are 3-7 in their last 10 games – as well as 2-5 on this road trip that is, likely, going to define their season.
“Anybody can beat anybody in this league, and it’s not like we’re in a position where we’re sitting at the top looking down at everybody, thinking, ‘oh, we’re gonna get this team’s best tonight,'” goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic said. “We’re always going to get their best.
“We can’t bank on having an easy game from the other side, we have to work for what we want to get. And, when we do, it’s a great game. It’s fun to watch, it’s fun to play behind, it’s fun for the guys to play. So, we just gotta find a way to have that urgency all the time, and we need to find it quick.”
The Penguins did not find that urgency for the first 40 minutes of the game. They came out slow and flat, and they couldn’t get anything generated. Former Penguin Mikael Granlund finally opened the scoring 7:41 into the second period for San Jose, and Sidney Crosby tied the game just 24 seconds into the third period on a fortunate bounce.
But young star Macklin Celebrini broke the tie just a few minutes later off of an egregious defensive zone turnover by Marcus Pettersson from below the Penguins’ own goal line. The Penguins did think they tied the game with just over five minutes remaining in regulation off of another fortunate bounce – this time, courtesy of Michael Bunting – but it was called back for goaltender interference on Anthony Beauvillier.
“Do you know what goalie interference is?” head coach Mike Sullivan asked reporters after the game. “Yeah, neither do I.”
In any case, the Penguins simply waited too long to ramp up the urgency in this game…