Pregame

The Penguins make a couple of rotations to their lineup of their own volition; Noel Acciari, Caleb Jones, Harrison Brunicke and Arturs Silovs take a seat to make way for Philip Tomasino, Connor Clifton, Matt Dumba and Tristan Jarry to get into the game.

The Anaheim Ducks go into the game with these lines.

First period

Justin Brazeau continues to be livin’ right with his fourth goal in the fourth game of the season; he posts up in front of the net and deflects a Ryan Shea point shot top shelf just 1:03 into the game. 1-0 visitors.

Dumba’s season gets off to an auspicious start by going to the penalty box on his second shift. Pittsburgh kills it off.

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Seconds after nearly scoring on a redirect in front of the net, Rickard Rakell scores on a…redirect near the front of the net. Shea’s point shots are working magic tonight. 2-0.

Sidney Crosby is off to the box on a fairly questionable call (he pretty much just lifted the stick of an opponent) and Chris Kreider scores a PPG against the Pens from the crease. We’ve seen that before. 2-1. Three goals in the first 9:42 of this game, we’ve got a slobber knocker!

The Pens try to use Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson as a pair for an offensive zone draw, but play goes the other way. Letang puts a bad touch (from the right side, even) and the Ducks hold the zone. A quick pass later and Cutter Gauthier hammers in a one-timer. 2-2 game with 35 seconds left in the period.

Shots are 12-7 Pittsburgh in the first, but the tie score isn’t encouraging being as the Pens were up 2-0 early and had a few more chances to get more but end up back even.

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Second period

Pittsburgh survives an early Anaheim power play, both teams trade chances and it’s the Ducks who get the next goal. Drew Helleson doesn’t get a lot on his shot from the right side, it’s aided by traffic in front including Ben Kindel taking up a lot of the angle and not being able to block the shot. Anaheim gets their first lead of the night, 3-2.

The Pens appear to tie the game, Crosby gets on the ice for a change and sets up Anthony Mantha in front. Mantha’s shot clicks off the defender in front and flutters over the shoulder and in past goalie Lukas Dostal. Anaheim challenges and they had a couple of options, Malkin was getting off the ice from an off-side position, though he appeared to get off the surface by the time of entry. Mantha was at risk of being slightly ahead of the play at the blueline as Crosby lugged the puck into the zone but review could not confirm it. Goal stands, 3-3 game and the Pens get a power play for the Ducks failed challenge with 2:59 to go in the period.

Dostal lost his net during the power play and Crosby swept at the puck but Ducks captain Radko Gudas was protecting the net and purposefully used his skate to keep it out. Nice defense there.

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After the first, it felt a little unlucky for the Pens to be tied, but 20 minutes later and still tied that feeling has reversed to being somewhat fortunate this game is still knotted up.

Third period

Anaheim headed to their fourth power play of the game, Tristan Jarry was able to make a few key stops to keep the game tied.

The Pens get in some trouble, Parker Wotherspoon wanted to go off the glass and out the zone but he skyed it and got the hook for a delay of game with 1:34 to play. Anaheim used their timeout to rest and regroup.

It worked, Mikael Granlund won the faceoff clean over Blake Lizotte, seven seconds and a few passes later Kreider scored his second power play goal of the night from the slot. 4-3 Anaheim with 1:27 to play.

The Pens opted to take their own timeout and pulled Jarry. It didn’t work, Letang had to interfere with a player with 11 seconds left to likely prevent a goal. He would go to the box but at that point it was all over anyways.

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Some thoughts

The Pens were transparent pre-game in announcing Brunicke as a scratch, which is nice to see a thoughtful plan being worked. His contract doesn’t burn a season until he appears in 10 games so they can be judicious to give him some time in seeing how it goes for him.

Speaking of that, will Ben Kindel be next to rotate out? He’s set the bar high for impressing at each viewing but tonight had to be the most dull of his short career so far. Not even knocking him for being in the shooting lane on Anaheim’s third goal, it happens. Just didn’t like his puck touches and wasn’t able to get a lot going, which stands out since he usually is making good things happen. One illustration is that Kindel drifted offside on a dump in, minor thing but for a young player that has the details buttoned up, he wasn’t so sharp tonight. Kindel played 14:22, had two shots on goal and nothing else on his stat-line aside from winning 5/12 faceoffs.

You don’t have to go far to point a finger at Kindel’s linemates either. Tommy Novak practically deserves a meeting with the Bobs (“what would you say….you do here?”) and Tomasino didn’t cover himself in glory either in his return to the lineup. Tomasino was undoubtedly looking to stand out and make a mark to stay in the lineup, but might have run afoul of playing a little greedy and not looking to use his linemates with passing. The irony of that thought isn’t lost upon us, if he scores, he’s a hero of the night. And heaven knows everyone always wants players to be aggressive with shots and not make an extra pass, so it’s something of a no-win situation – unless it works. It wasn’t working for Tomasino.

The reference in the above note likely got Incepted into my brain now that they play the nostalgic commercial with the Office Space guys about to bust up the printer.

It’s all fun and games with top players on the penalty kill until the pucks start flying at them. Rickard Rakell had a shot attempt hit his skate in the first period, luckily was no worse for wear but that’s never a fun thing to see a key player eating pucks on the PK.

After posting four career assists in 73 career games, Ryan Shea upped his output by 50% in the first 7:01 of this game. Nothing fancy but nice job sending in some deflectable offerings from the left side. The Pens will badly need the defense to help generate chances and that proved to be an effective way tonight.

Crosby increased his career assist output in the first period by a much lesser degree of 0.09% (from 1,063 to 1,064) but it was notable to move him past Steve Yzerman for sole possession of ninth place in the all-time record books. Next up on that list, Adam Oates at 1,079, who Crosby already started working on with the second period assist to get his total up to 1,065.

If you say nothing else about Connor Clifton, he’s a physical guy. Clifton officially had seven hits and on just about each one he separated the opponent’s skates from the ice. Clifton is listed at (perhaps a slightly generous) 6’0” and 196 pounds, he’s not a big guy by NHL standards but he packs a wallop when he hits and is wired to be a physical player in a way that stands out these days. That note lost some luster when Clifton fell away from Kreider to cover empty space in front of the net on the game winning goal.

Styles make fights, as they say in boxing, and Pens/Ducks is quite the clash of similar abilities and a shared interest of carefree (or maybe careless) manner of defending. Led to some exciting action at both ends and a game that was bound to twist in turn in every which direction over the course of a period, or sometimes shift. It wasn’t a shot-heavy game, but don’t let that fool you if reading tomorrow and not being able to stay up late to see it – very entertaining and plenty of pucks flying around in potential scoring opportunities for each side, a fun back and forth with the lead flying back and forth (or back to tied, at least).

Surprised they let Mantha’s goal stand, it doesn’t get much closer than it was there.

Scary moment away from the cameras during the second intermission when Penguin play-by-play broadcaster Josh Getzoff had some sort of health incident and was tended to. Radio announcer Joe Brand stepped in to call the third period on the TV side. Brand did say Getzoff was “doing ok” in a brief update on the air, so we can only hope that all is well there.

Two more goals against while on the PK, basically the difference of this game. The Pens only received one power play, and that was automatic due to the coaching challenge so they didn’t have a lot to work with.

Tough loss to take in a close game, the Pens will regroup and try it again down in Southern California on Thursday night against the Kings.