Penguins/Blackhawks Recap: Mostly lifeless Pens tripped up in Chicago

Rickard Rakell scores late, but the Penguins can’t climb out of a hole they dig against the Blackhawks

Pregame

There’s a mild surprise to start the day, Philip Tomasino is injured and can’t play so the up-and-down from the AHL Joona Koppanen is back up for the day. Alex Nedeljkovic gets the nod in net on the second half of the back-to-back.

First period

Of all the periods in a season, the first was definitely one of them. That’s about as much as you can say about that, no goals or penalties or very much in the way of exciting developments.

On the plus side, there is a lot of skating and end-to-end play and a lack of whistles, so that’s nice.

Shots are 8-6 PIT through 20.

Second period

The second period is a lot like the first. No goals or penalties for the longest time and lots of stretches of whistle-free play. Blake Lizotte deflects a puck past goalie Spencer Knight, but his stick was comically about straight vertical in the air and it was an easy and correctly ruled not a good goal.

With 2:59 to go, the Penguins earn the first power play of the game. The first goal is scored on it, but by Chicago. The Blackhawks got one odd-man rush early but couldn’t score. More zone time happened for the Pens but another situation of a loose puck near the wall caused trouble for Erik Karlsson, as it seems to do. Puck and player both get by him and CHI had another 2-on-1 with Kris Letang back. But the ‘Hawks make two passes through Letang and Frank Nazar wires a short-side shot by Nedeljkovic.

Pittsburgh gets another power play late but neither team can score.

That does it for the second period and we have a goal but it’s by the Blackhawks.

Third period

The Pens don’t do much with their carryover power play time, besides Matt Grzelcyk charging in and slashing a guy for no reason to send himself to the penalty box. Pittsburgh kills that off.

Bryan Rust almost stuffs one in from the side of the net but no dice.

Chicago extends their lead with 10:20 to play. Ilya Mikheyev leaves Conor Timmins in the dust and Conor Bedard hits him with a pass. Mikheyev finishes the breakaway. 2-0.

Mike Sullivan was going nuts on the bench after the goal to the refs, giving the refs a very angry version of the Logan Roy from Succession (extremely NSFW!) over an uncalled slash in the buildup to the play. The players on the team didn’t have a lot of juice tonight but the coach was still very invested.

Evgeni Malkin gets taken down and slides hard into the boards to send Pittsburgh to one more power play with 5:40 to go. The Pens quickly get on the board just 16 seconds into the power play. Ville Koivunen starts the play off the wall to pass down to Rust on the goal line. Rust one-touches a pass to the bumper for Rickard Rakell to smack into the net for his 34th goal of the season. 2-1 game with 5:24 to go.

Rust loses the puck in the neutral zone and the play goes the other way. Bedard leads a 2-on-1 and calls his own number with a shot. Big stop by Nedeljkovic to keep the game alive.

Nedeljkovic gets pulled with 1:50 remaining. No heroics this time, Rust has a chance low but the Pens lose the puck and Chicago works the puck up the ice to Mikheyev for an empty net goal to cap this one off with 56 seconds to go. 3-1.

Some thoughts

• It wasn’t the loudest game but it’s fun to zero in on Rutger McGroarty. He put a cross-ice lead pass right on Bryan Rust’s tape in the second period. Rust had some open net looking at him but his aim on the shot went wide. Later in the second, McGroarty showed his hockey IQ and hung back towards the right point when Erik Karlsson gained a zone entry. Karlsson ended up looking back high and hit the pass to McGroarty that led to a nice shot and chance after McGroarty stepped inside a defender. Little things but encouraging to see the rookie putting it together piece by piece as the days and games go by.
• Similarly, they didn’t score but it was a nice little game from the newly connected second line of Rakell-Malkin-Koivunen. They were the best offensive line of the night for generating some chances, with Koivunen featuring in the middle of a lot of it. Malkin had a team-high 5 shots before getting tripped and tumbling hard into the boards late in the game. Hopefully nothing of consequence happened there beyond the uncomfortable moment.
• When I say the game moved quickly in the early part, that was illustrated by the faceoff total. Usually in NHL hockey there’s about a faceoff per minute. Through 40 minutes there were only 28 total faceoffs. Add in period starts, the penalty and the goal and that left only 24 other stoppages in 40 minutes. Might as well zoom through a game like this as quickly as possible.
• For better or worse, Karlsson is always authentically himself in trying to play the puck. It’s a good thing to have a short memory and get after it the next time but he’s got no qualms about attempting low percentage keeps near the blueline. Too often it burns him and the team.
• Whether it’s sometimes being on the left side or in too big of a role, the arrow is pointing down on Timmins in these last few games. He had a really good start with the Pens in his first handful of games and earned a shot for more ice and a bigger role but it hasn’t gone well. Granted, every single defenseman on the team is having his own struggles at times too, might just have to ride it out and see what happens.
• The Penguins looked very much like a team in their third city in four days, especially considering they emptied the tank with a huge effort yesterday against a good Stars team. Sometimes that catches up.
• This loss officially mathematically eliminates the Pens from the playoffs. Not that it was a big surprise.

These same Blackhawks come to Pittsburgh for a rematch on Tuesday night.