Penguins/Rangers Game Recap: Well, that wasn’t encouraging. Pens throttled 6-0 in opener

The Pens stumble out the gates with a blowout home loss to New York

Pregame

The night would start with cheers on the introduction of Sidney Crosby in his 20th season with the Penguins.

First period

It didn’t take long for the Penguins to fall in a hole. Noel Acciari and Kris Letang combine to lose a wall battle, the puck ends up on the other point and Jacob Trouba booms in a shot. Sam Carrick gets a tip on it from the slot, not much that Tristan Jarry can do about that one. Rangers lead, just 2:24 in.

The Rangers score again on the rush, on a shot Jarry probably could have done a little more on this time around. The Penguins instantly challenge, and upon using freeze frame and a magnifying glass NYR was offside by a minimal amount. No goal. Lucky break for Pittsburgh and their crack staff saves a goal very early in the year (at least someone had a good period).

Late in the period, Artemi Panarin out-foxes Lars Eller and picks his pocket. Play goes the other way. Marcus Pettersson makes the rare miscue to wipe himself totally out of the play. Jarry crumbles on a shot fired to the middle of the net and right along the ice. Did that even beat him five hole or sneak under the leg? Yuck all around.

The Pens were on the ropes and deflated, and a veteran Rangers team was able to sink them further before the period was out. Chris Kreider scores with 12 seconds left, Jack St. Ivany is somewhere out in Moon Township while NYR overloads the crease with pucks and bodies. 3-0.

Shots were 10-8 NYR through 20, the home crowd musters up mild boos for the home team after they stumble out of the gates.

Second period

The second doesn’t start tremendously well when Drew O’Connor takes a penalty. Fortunately, the Pens kill it off.

Jarry earned Pittsburgh’s first power play when Will Cullye ran him over. Evgeni Malkin gets a shot and Michael Bunting missed on a deflection but nothing too exciting.

It looked like the Pens stabilized a bit but then surrendered another goal. It’s another that won’t be on Pettersson’s highlight reel, he allowed a pass to go through him and then Cuylle beat him with speed to the outside. Cuylle then whiffed on a shot but it ended up working out perfectly for Filip Chytil to skate into and blast a high shot by Jarry. Plenty of space for him since Matt Grzelcyk jumped down in an attempt to help Pettersson and protect the net. 4-0.

Trouba tripped Anthony Beauvillier to send Pittsburgh to a second power play on the night. The puck movement was decent but Crosby and Rakell missed the net. That led to a 3v2 rush for the Rangers and Jarry stood up for a big save.

After more Pittsburgh pressure, a crazy puck bounce sprung Kaapo Kakko for a clean breakaway. Jarry stopped him on the backhand and then the Pens let out a little frustration after the whistle with a scrum. Pettersson and Chytil get matching minors for roughing.

That frustration continued with Crosby taking a cross-checking minor a few seconds into the 4v4. Pittsburgh escapes to the end of the period with some nice PK’ing from Cody Glass in particular.

Third period

Both teams play out the string in the third with some near misses. Matt Grzelcyk hits a post, Jarry uses his right leg to stop a chance from in tight.

Crosby draws a penalty but it’s the Rangers who score. An errant pass springs Kreider on a breakaway, Letang can’t chase him down and Kreider doesn’t even get to shoot when Letang interferes with him but the puck slides past Jarry as a result of the strong drive to the net. Oof. 5-0.

Bottom drops completely out with a few minutes to go when Ryan Graves loses Vincent Trocheck at the top of the crease, all the Penguins not helping by overskating back. Easy goal pad stats and make it 6-0.

Thankfully the time drains out before we have to witness any further.

Some thoughts

• The first look at the Pens this season confirms the worst fears about how they measure up against a good team. They don’t measure up at all. The defense is frequently out to lunch, the goalie can’t keep the puck out of the net, the forwards aren’t making many plays. The decisions are poor and the results are unforgiving.
• That said, the top three lines all had their moments in the first period. Perhaps none more than the third line. But the most important moment was their most reliable players in Eller losing the puck and Pettersson sliding right out of the way to allow a back-breaking second goal that ended up opening the flood gates.
• The early hole led to some changes, Rickard Rakell and Drew O’Connor flipped spots on the top lines for the start of the second period. Rakell was decent early, engaged in skating back and generally OK. O’Connor like so many of his teammates, not so much.
• The Pens did get Crosby-Malkin together for an even strength shift in the first and two in the second period and a look in the third. That was nice to see. Given the lack of talent (compounded with Bryan Rust’s absence) this is going to be necessary to stack skill players when possible.
• Shot selection and ability to hit the target was an issue. Through two periods: the Pens had 19 SOG, 13 more attempts got blocked by the Rangers and 18 attempts missed. A lot of those misses (Rakell 4, Crosby 3, Bunting 2) were from players and spots where they needed better. Through 40 minutes that made for only 38% of shot attempts ending up as actual shots. The Rangers were much better in that regard (58%) in the same period.
• And I guess if you’re searching for bright spots, O’Connor, Cody Glass and Ryan Graves did well during the 3v4 kill late in the second period. Glass was selling out to block shots and used his size effectively.
• Uneven night for Jarry, dreadful at the start allowing four goals in the first 19 minutes (though he got let off the hook for one GA with the challenge taking it away). But then he did steady and made a ton of nice saves for the next 35 minutes to briefly cling to some sort of respectability for the team, until the last few minutes happened to get back to a disaster anyways. Crazy enough, this easily could have been about a 10 or 11 goal game by NYR.
• Power play went 0-for-3 and gave up a SHG against. Wasn’t ideal, to say the least to painfully prove that improvement from last year isn’t guaranteed simply on a belief things can naturally not be so bad again. It still can be that bad! The quicker Rust can come back and the 3F, 2D formation goes away on the power play, the better.
• Rutger McGroarty’s debut: 1 SOG, -1, 1 faceoff lost and that was it on the score sheet in 12:20 of time. Not bad and did a few little things well, he’s very good as the F3 in the neutral zone to pick off or break up outlet passes. Nice little taste of NHL action and hopefully something to build on for the future.
• In a lot of ways, unfortunately it was a classic Ranger game. They were opportunistic and scored on rushes. When Pittsburgh were at their best (very briefly), Igor Shesterkin was a brick wall. The only deviations from their normal script was that it wasn’t power play fueled and didn’t have that many Panarin/Zibanejad/Fox finger prints on the offense.
• The Pens indulged them with too many odd man rushes. Many were late in the game when the result was decided, so color your own narrative on how meaningful that is. Inclined to say not that much, but again, certainly not encouraging.
• On one hand, there’s no sense in over-reacting to one game’s results. On the other hand, the Pens look like a piecemeal team of older stars mis-matched with random spare pieces jettisoned from their old teams for not being that good (because, well..that’s what they are). Shouldn’t be a major surprise that was hopelessly outmatched against a top team who showed up to play. In reality, both things can be true. It is only one game but it’s not a good first glimpse at what could lie ahead.

Terrible first impression for the Pens tonight, very little juice by them and just about every mistake or miscue was put into their net. Might be a good thing they get a do over and quick reset for another chance tomorrow night in Detroit. But you only get one chance at a first impression and it was not a pretty sight in Pittsburgh.