Despite missing their top-two centers on Friday against the New York Rangers, the Pittsburgh Penguins were able to pull off an improbable 3-2 victory.
But compounding lineup losses on Saturday may have proven too much.
Already down Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins took the ice against the Philadelphia Flyers without first-line winger Bryan Rust and forward Boko Imama as well. And – despite outplaying Philadelphia – their lack of finishing touch haunted them, as they dropped the contest, 3-2, despite a good push.
“I’m proud of these guys,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’re playing hard. I mean, let’s just state the obvious: We’re a little undermanned lately, and these guys are stepping up. They’re stepping up, they’re playing hard, we’re competing. It’s not perfect. We’re going to make some mistakes out there. It’s a game of mistakes. But, most of them are mistakes of enthusiasm. We’ll live with those. We’ll work through them.
“We’re competing hard. I just think we’ve got a good group. I think we have good people. These guys are high-character guys. They care an awful lot about winning and trying to play the game the right way, and their intentions are in the right spot. It’s a hard league. It’s not easy to win, and I think these guys are competing hard.”
Without Rust or Crosby in the fold, the Penguins rolled with a first line of Anthony Beauvillier, Kevin Hayes, and Rickard Rakell, and they contributed to both Penguins goals.
Scott Laughton scored on Philadelphia’s first shot of the game less than two minutes into the first period, but Pittsburgh dominated the period otherwise. They held the Flyers to just two shots in the first, and they carried that momentum into the second frame, when Erik Karlsson tied the score on a snipe to the upper-right corner of the net behind goaltender Sam Ersson after a great cycling shift by the first line.
However, an unfortunate bounce from the Penguins’ attacking zone out toward their own zone ended up a footrace between Kris Letang, Vasily Ponomarev, Flyers forward Garnett Hathaway, and Penguins goaltender Joel Blomqvist, who hesitated to go after the puck. When he did, he tried to swat the puck out of the zone from between the circles, but he instead hit Hathaway, and it bounced right back into the net.
Travis Konecny added another goal early in the third period for the Flyers to make it 3-1, then Hayes brought the score to within one on a no-quit play in Ersson’s blue paint. The play was not ruled a goal…