Penguins/Rangers Recap: Strong start ends in shootout loss for the Pens

Pregame

Same players for the Penguins, Stuart Skinner gets back into the lineup for the visiting team.

First period

Lots of penalty trouble early for the Rangers, Braden Schneider is the first to go 1:28 into the game. The Pens make them pay quickly. Anthony Mantha gets a great redirect on Erik Karlsson’s point shot, 1-0 Pittsburgh.

Soon after, Vincent Trocheck is very unhappy with the officials and abuses them enough to take a penalty and get a 10-minute misconduct tacked on. Pittsburgh scores again, Evgeni Malkin makes a great pass over for Bryan Rust, Rust sends it home.

The Rangers make a desperation challenge for goalie interference and…somehow it works to get the goal disallowed based on the most minimal of contact by Mantha on goalie Igor Shesterkin. Even though it didn’t really alter the ability to make the save seconds later from the other side. Refs making sure a nationally televised game doesn’t get out of hand? Or not wanting to call a third penalty on NYR three minutes into the game? Or giving Mike Sullivan a bail-out for the Trocheck penalty in the first place? Or just seeing what they decide to see? Who can say.

The rest of the period is pretty good for Pittsburgh, though they don’t score again, Rust hits a post on another close call. The Rangers barely have a pulse for this game. Shots are 10-2 PIT after one.

Second period

Ryan Shea gets his Sergei Gonchar on early in the second when it comes to dancing along the blueline and throws a puck on net. It hits off Ranger defenseman Scott Morrow and changes direction enough to beat Shesterkin. 2-0 for real this time.

NYR gets a long-range shot on Skinner with 14:09, it’s the Rangers’ first shot of the period and in almost 20 game minutes, the crowd responds with the sarcastic cheer, but even that is half-hearted.

A bit later, Rickard Rakell goes to the penalty box for hooking and opens the door for countryman Mika Zibanejad. Trocheck sets Zibanejad up for the big shot, NYR scores to make it 2-1 exactly halfway through the period and game.

The Rangers sustain some energy for the first time all game, Gabe Perreault nearly ties the game when his shot flies off the post. The Pens are the ones suddenly caught on long shifts and standing around like their skate blades are out.

It’s a lot more disjointed of a period for the Pens (shots are 13-11 PIT in the second) but they do get out of there without giving up any more goals.

Third period

New York scores early, some good luck when the puck clicks off Rust and goes to Vladislav Gavrikov and then a nice play by Gavrikov to find the open stick of Taylor Raddish for the tip in. 2-2 game.

The Pens now become the team to take only one shot halfway through the period and have shifted Ben Kindel to play with Rakell and Rust to shake lines up in an effort to get something, later Malkin will skate with Rust and Rakell on shifts starting on the fly.

Neither team can score again in regulation.

Overtime

Kindel-Malkin-Karlsson start it out for the Penguins. Pittsburgh ices the puck. Rakell (0-for-9 on the night on faceoffs) loses another and the Rangers take possession of the puck for quite a while, though they’re not in much of a hurry to create.

OT drags along with neither team being overly aggressive, finally in the closing seconds Malkin is able to attack the net and generate a few shots.

Shootout

Mantha is the first shooter, he loses the handle on a deke attempt and doesn’t even get a shot away.

Trocheck is up for the Rangers, he beats Skinner five-hole.

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Egor Chinakhov’s turn, he tries for the five-hole but Shesterkin closes it up.

J.T. Miller gets the chance to end the game, Skinner stops him.

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It’s down to Tommy Novak to keep the game going. He doesn’t, his shot goes well wide.

Some thoughts

• Another rough day on faceoffs, at one point in the second period the Pens had won just 21% of the faceoffs! The team only had six wins on 29 draws, take out Malkin (who won two, lost two at that point) and the rest of them were 4-for-25 (16%). Didn’t prove to be too disadvantageous today, but it’s a big issue for a team down their best and most frequent faceoff taker in Crosby.
• Other than the starts of play, some line changes are being tinkered with already and bound to happen for tomorrow. Beyond just losing all 10 faceoffs, Rakell didn’t have any shots on goal today. Rust only had two shots and got real quiet after a nice start. Avery Hayes hasn’t been able to show much alongside them. Whether it ends up being Kindel or Malkin – and both took a shift or two with Rakell/Rust today – as the next look there, something’s gotta give in that area immediately.
• The Pens’ first 20 minutes: sublime! Very, very good. The Rangers woke up at the first intermission and started playing a lot better. Pittsburgh was acting like they couldn’t or shouldn’t have to follow in kind, instead staying more at the level when NYR wasn’t very good. Didn’t make for a strong finish.
• As a result, it didn’t look like Pittsburgh squandered opportunities early in the game (most notably on Rust’s disallowed goal, and then Rust hitting the post). Turns out they could have used a little more out of the portion of the game that they dominated than more than just a 1-0 lead.
• Pens fall to 1-8 in the shootout on the season. They at least used new faces, but the results were the same in terms of their shooters not being able to do much of anything and the goaltending hardly being great either. They make it easy for the other team when they’re not even getting 2/3 of the shootout attempts even on net as it happened this time.
• Given how hard the schedule is about to get — starting with first place Vegas tomorrow — letting a point slip away against a last place team hurts in the moment. Up 2-0 and against a bad team that didn’t look interested in playing, the Pens should have been able to get a full result in this one. But when NYR started to get better, as noted above, the visitors didn’t up their games too. Disappointing outcome and last couple of periods here.

In good news, the Pens don’t have to dwell on this very long. The Golden Knights are waiting in Pittsburgh for an afternoon game tomorrow.