Penguins/Flames Recap: Pens fade late, lose in shootout

The Pens give up a last minute goal in regulation and then don’t find luck in the shootout, dropping a 4-3 game to Calgary but picking up a point in the standings

Pregame

Michael Bunting is back from his one game health bomb. Ryan Shea and Jack St. Ivany continue their informal flipping in/out of the lineup, Jesse Puljujarvi and Cody Glass trade lines on the bottom-six and Alex Nedeljkovic starts the 15th game in a row that he is available to play (dating back to last season).

Most notably, the Pens flip the top left side defensemen and have Marcus Pettersson playing with Letang and Matt Grzelcyk skating with Erik Karlsson for the first time this season.

First period

Not a great start for Pittsburgh, they ice the puck early and Kris Letang heads to the penalty box for a slashing call 46 seconds into the game. Nedeljkovic makes a few nice saves and nothing comes of it.

The game evens out for a bit, but the Flames score the first goal on the rush. A Flame whiffed on a shot and the puck kept moving forward. Grzelcyk couldn’t get back in time to prevent Rasmus Andersson from skating in and lifting the puck over Nedeljkovic’s shoulder from in close. 1-0 Calgary with 8:12 to go in the first.

Calgary takes their first minor penalty of the night to bring out the Pens’ power play. It’s not a good one, the Flames get one shot on net, which equals what Pittsburgh does on it.

Grzelcyk’s bum period continues by tripping a Flame and heading to the box. The PK holds to the break.

Shots are 12-12 to start. One breakdown ends up in the Pittsburgh net, some decent work otherwise but not much exciting in the early going.

Second period

The Pens kill off the carry over to Grzelcyk’s power play and build off that with a good shift from the Evgeni Malkin line…And then Malkin gets called for a high-sticking penalty to send the Flames to their third power play of the game.

Well, the PK has practice and is in good form tonight; they kill off the Malkin minor without much drama.

It becomes Calgary’s turn to take a minor as the special teams-heavy game continues. Bryan Rust gets time in the middle of the ice off a Sidney Crosby past and wires a perfect shot to the top corner of the net past Dustin Wolf. 1-1 game.

Puljujarvi is the next to go to the penalty box after reaching for a pokecheck but getting the skate of Nazem Kadri instead. Pens kill that one off too.

Ref show continues right after that penalty ends in Pittsburgh’s favor to grant a power play with 4:06 to play. Hilariously the teams trade end-to-end rushes (OK it wasn’t that funny) and Nedeljkovic earns his keep with a great save on a 2-on-1 against.

The period winds down and after setting a bar to call every little infraction the refs miss or overlook Bunting taking a nasty crosscheck in front of the net that stings him. Gotta love it.

Shots are 13-6 in the period, but raw numbers alone don’t tell the story of Nedeljkovic’s timely stops. He was great. The Pens get one past the Wolfman to reduce the game to 20 minutes on the road to get a result.

Third period

Letang turns the puck over in his own end but Calgary air mails a shot from point blank range. Somehow in the sequence it’s the Flames who take a penalty. (Maybe the refs were feeling bad about missing the call at the end of last period).

Crosby makes a bad turnover on the power play, but Letang atones for his earlier mistake to break up a 2-on-1 pass.

Rickard Rakell takes a bad angle shot, doesn’t work. Kevin Hayes gains the zone, later as the power play is expiring, and Rakell flinged another awful angle shot and it hits the goalie Wolf and trickles in. It’s not ugly when it works. 2-1 Pens lead.

After a few minutes the Flames tie the game. Ryan Graves lost a puck in his feet to start a sequence and his weak attempt up the ice served as a pass to a Calgary player. One pass later and Mackenzie Weegar boomed a hard, far shot by Nedeljkovic that Blake Coleman might have deflected on the way in and Cody Glass definitely did. 2-2.

Pens keep working for it, Rakell hits a post, first line has a long o-zone shift, Acciari tries to punch one from in close. And then the pressure mounts and won’t be denied when Acciari scores from chipping it in tight. 3-2 with 6:20 to go.

Graves ices the puck the shift after the goal but Nedeljkovic saves the day off the d-zone draw.

Calgary pulls the goalie with about two minutes to play, Letang ices the puck with 1:36 to go. Acciari wins the draw but Graves ices it again. Acciari loses his first faceoff of the night and Letang ices it again with 1:09 left.

Flames utilize their timeout and with the same Pens trapped for so long, they can’t white-knuckle their way home. Kadri scores with 42.9 seconds left to tie the game.

Overtime

Crosby-Rust-Letang start the proceedings for the Pens. Sid wins the faceoff and the Pens own the puck early on. Don’t get much going on as the 3v3 chess match slows the game way down whenever a team takes control.

The Pens use their timeout with 1:10 to play to give their top guys a breath. No dice.

Shootout

First one of the season for the Pens.

Andrei Kuzmenko goes first for the Flames, comes in slowly and dekes to the backhand, Nedeljkovic sticks with him (literally) and chops the puck away at the last second.

Rakell is up first for the Pens, he dangles in and rips a high shot to the glove and in the net. 1-0.

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Anthony Mantha takes a turn, he dekes backhand and slips it in five-hole. 1-1.

Crosby goes for Pittsburgh. He winds in and rips a shot that hits the iron but it stays out.

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Rasmus Andersson starts Round 3, Nedeljkovic gets a piece with the glove but the puck trickles in. 2-1.

Rust is in do or die situation, and he comes through with a quick low shot. 2-2.

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Round 4 begins with Connor Zary, Nedeljkovic makes a save with the leg.

Letang goes for the Pens with the chance to win, but his patented deke to the backhand is saved by Wolf.

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Kadri shoots in Round 5 but Nedeljkovic stones him.

Lars Eller is out there next, with another chance for Pittsburgh to win. Wolf stops him.

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Round 6 is Justin Kirkland’s time to shine and he rips a forehand shot by Nedeljkovic. 3-2.

The Pens need a goal and it’s Evgeni Malkin time. His five-hand shot is stopped by Wolf, Flames win.

Some thoughts

• Annual reminder of the way the rinks are lit extra bright in Western Canada. (The dashboard cut out my heart eyes emoji, so please imagine a heart eyes emoji here)
• Great jersey matchup for that lighting to hit on; the Pens’ road whites are so clean and Calgary brought out their late 90’s/early 2000’s “Flaming Horse” kits. Hit the right burst of nostalgia and contrasted well against each other.
• Grzelcyk stepped up to pinch when facing bodies going the other way, it didn’t work and it ended up in the net. Rinse, repeat. Happens too often for too many players to get the team in trouble to make that initial mistake and then can’t clean it up (Karlsson in this instance was well-positioned and made a good play but his sweep didn’t break it up enough). It happens, but the repetitive nature is annoying.
• Bryan Rust couldn’t catch a break early on. First period alone he was misplaying the puck, step slow, iced it another time. Looked like a shell of himself and the concern-o-meter on his form was getting high before a clinical finish on the power play in the second period. He needed that one. His reaction on the goal to look to the sky and exhale deeply was fitting.
• The Pens’ PK probably had their best looking night of the season. They faced down a Calgary power play that came into the night 7th in the NHL (29.4%) but gave the Flames little to work with, going 4/4 on kills. Good night for that group to have a good night, being as Pittsburgh took three minor penalties in the first 22 minutes of the game and four within the first 33.
• Directly related to the above note, loved the game of Noel Acciari tonight (totally independent of the third period goal). 3 hits (including a bone-rattler on Ryan Lomberg), 2 blocked shots, won his first 7 faceoffs. Lots of quality PK and fourth line work put in there. Performances like this are why he’s always going to find a spot in the lineup when healthy.
• The power play is, well, whatever you want to say is probably right. It was 1-for-4 and scored another goal just seconds after one ended. By any measure that’s good, and what the team was missing pretty much all of last season. It’s also giving up chances and rushes against at an alarming rate, including more puzzling decisions from players like Crosby, Malkin and Letang with the puck. Gotta live with the bad to take the good in some regards, but it’s a little too reckless.
• Kyle Dubas said pregame on his radio show, “if you’re a goaltender in our group right now… the opportunity is immense ‘cause nobody has really grabbed the ball and start to run with it, and we need two of them to do so.” Continuing that analogy, Nedeljkovic busted off about a 15 yard run down the sideline tonight. Goaltending has been a proposition that’s changed hands and directions several times, but after this one it’s becoming clear the man closest to stepping up to meet the moment is Nedeljkovic. For one day at least.
• Letang still is a beast to take a 2:08 long shift late in the game (after already playing 23 minutes on the night), go to the bench for the last 43 seconds of regulation and the brief break and start OT looking fresh as a daisy. Say what you will about his play but his conditioning and endurance at 37 years old is still something to marvel over.
• Overtime is mad boring now with the teams regrouping and leaving the offensive zone on a whim. Everyone does it, and has good strategy to do so. But it’s at the expense of the product. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a rule instituted about that in the near future, OT tactics essentially turn the fast sport of ice hockey into something too controlled, too measured and too off-putting.
• Pittsburgh had five shootouts last season (going 2-3). Off to an 0-1 start on them this season, but were probably the Crosby post away from victory. Or that bad bounce on the game-tying goal. So it goes sometimes.

Pittsburgh gets a point out of Calgary, they probably deserved two but deserve had nothin’ to do with it. Road trip continues on Friday in Edmonton.