The Pittsburgh Penguins faced a familiar situation when they gave up two quick goals to the Detroit Red Wings early in the second period, staring down a 2-0 deficit.
And, despite responding the right way and tying the game, 2-2, they fell just short in the extra frame.
Simon Edvinsson scored the game-winner for Detroit in overtime, as the Penguins fell to the Red Wings, 3-2. Bryan Rust and Anthony Beauvillier scored goals for Pittsburgh, and Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 28 of 31 Detroit shots.
Even though they couldn’t get the extra point, the team was proud of their response to the disaster of a game that unfolded on Monday.
“The other night was embarrassing,” forward Bryan Rust said. “Tonight, we adapted. We got down two, and we just tried to push back. We were really good in the second half of the game. We didn’t get it in overtime, but we showed a lot more guts tonight.”
Rust added: “Obviously, Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re trying to get this thing going in the right direction as fast as we can. That was a good step.”
Here are some thoughts and observations from Wednesday’s overtime loss:
– I saw a lot of takes on X during the first period that criticzied the Penguins’ “lack of effort” and “lifelessness.”
I’ve gotta say, I highly disagreed with those.
The Penguins played, perhaps, one of their best defensive periods of the season in the first. Detroit had some offensive zone time early, but Pittsburgh didn’t really allow much in terms of high-danger chances. They were clogging lanes, getting stick-on-puck, stick-on-stick, and excelling at retrievals and defensive zone breakouts. Ryan Graves was especially good in the opening frame.
Then, as the period progressed, they got some offensive momentum.
Yes, the building was quiet and there wasn’t much energy inside of it. Remember, they were fresh off a very bad loss. Head coach Mike Sullivan even mentioned that the Penguins could have been playing a little too careful in the early parts of the period.
But, overall, the team came off of that bad loss and responded the right way by playing a fundamentally sound period, even if it was a boring one.
Boring hockey is not always bad hockey. Especially for the Penguins, who have struggled mightily on the defensive side of the puck this season.
– The way I see it, this is, most certainly, the best deployment for the Penguins’ top-six right now.
The top line was the team’s best. Beauvillier scored his fifth goal of the season and is on pace for a career-high 23 goals. Crosby…