In the context of a 56-game season, Mike Sullivan realizes the increased gravity that comes with each contest in 2020-21.
“Every game has a heightened level of importance by nature of having less games to get points in the standings and to position yourself, establish yourself in the standings,” the Penguins coach said via video conference. “Every game is critically important just because there’s less games and less opportunity to climb the standings.”
After their second game of the campaign, the Penguins might want to invest in some carabiners and crampons because they’ve already stumbled into a crevice.
Allowing three goals in the first 11 minutes, 30 seconds of regulation, they were never able to rebound and fell to the Flyers, 5-2, on Friday in a contest that was short on detailed play by both squads but filled with action. The loss made the Penguins a perfect 0-2-0 to open the season with 54 remaining, strictly against East Division foes.
The setback saw Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry give up three goals, which was an improvement over the half-dozen he yielded in Wednesday’s 6-3 loss in Philadelphia. But then again, he was pulled Friday after facing only six shots.
Through two games, Jarry has made 22 saves on 31 shots for a save percentage of .710.
“As far as Tristan’s start to the season, it’s tough to give up that amount of goals on not a lot of shots or not a lot of chances,” Sullivan said. “But to his defense, some of the chances were high quality.”
Sullivan’s defense of Jarry was far stiffer than the defense in front of him on the ice.
Philadelphia’s first two goals, a power-play score by forward Travis Konecny 7:27 into the contest and an even-strength tally by Konecny again only 2:59 later, each came directly in the blue paint. They were Konecny’s first goals of the season.
“We have to protect our net front a little better, help our goalies out,” said Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel, who made his season debut. “Just try to keep (the opposition) out of that blue paint.”
Sure enough, the Flyers were unable to score again on Jarry from the crease. Instead, they scored from the left circle when defenseman Ivan Provorov ripped a wrister past Jarry’s blocker on the near side at the 11:30 mark of the first period for his first goal.
Sullivan had seen enough, pulling Jarry – possibly for humanitarian purposes – in favor of Casey DeSmith.
The Penguins seemed to respond to the change at they converted their first power-play opportunity of the game only 1:29 later. Forward Sidney Crosby was able to settle a deflected pass to the right of the crease and lifted a backhand off the near post and over sprawling goaltender Carter Hart for this second of the season.
The Penguins made it 3-2 only 32 seconds later. Forward Jared McCann blazed into the offensive zone up the right wing and lifted a wrister to the far side that Hart punched to the slot with his blocker. Forward Brandon Tanev followed up on the rebound and plunked it into the net with a forehand shot for his second goal.
After that, the Penguins seemed to control play for the balance of a contest that was filled with special teams as 12 separate power-play opportunities were doled out by officials.
“We had a ton of chances,” forward Bryan Rust said. “We had numerous chances there. We had a lot of chances to tie the game up and score some goals. We just weren’t able to do it. Hopefully, we can learn from that and just start putting more pucks in.”
After a scoreless second period, Konecny completed his first career hat trick at 12:53 in the third period with a deflection off his left skate against DeSmith, who finished with 12 saves on 13 shots.
An empty-netter by forward Oskar Lindblom, his second goal of the season, capped the scoring at 17:52 of the third and secured a victory for the Flyers as well as a winless start to the season for the Penguins and Jarry.
“Tristan is a good goalie,” Sullivan said. “He’s a competitor. I know he’ll bounce back.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at srorabaugh@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Categories: Penguins/NHL | Sports
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