After losing Captain Sidney Crosby\u00a0to a lower-body injury in the last game against Ottawa and already without the services of Evgeni Malkin, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been no strangers to adversity this season.<\/p>\n
In contrast to their shootout victory on Thursday night, the Penguins were unable to battle back and earn two points against the NHL\u2019s second-best team on Saturday, losing to the Dallas Stars 6-3 at PPG Paints Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all watched the same game,\u201d Erik Karlsson said. \u201cI think it was a winnable game for us today. Ultimately, we didn’t do the work. They’re a good team for a reason, and they showed that today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Penguins started the game on the right foot, generating chances in the offensive zone and limiting the Stars’ ability to get out of their own zone. After drawing an early power play, Anthony Mantha tipped in his 27th\u00a0goal of the season off Karlsson\u2019s wrist shot from the point.<\/p>\n
While the Penguins were able to outwork the Stars for the first half of the first period, things would change as they dug themselves into penalty trouble. Mantha took a high-sticking penalty, a bench minor for too many men on the ice, and then Rutger McGroarty was called for tripping all within six minutes of each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we had a great start,\u201d Bryan Rust said. \u201cWe were in their face. We had some really good shifts. Got into penalty trouble. That hurt us. But at the end of the first (period), we got some big (penalty) kills. We probably should have carried the momentum into the second (period) and we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before puck drop, Head Coach Dan Muse alluded to how Dallas has skill and talent all over their lineup. In the second period, it was in full effect.<\/p>\n
For the majority of the season, the penalty kill has been one of the biggest bright spots for the team. With the current absence of Blake Lizotte, one of Pittsburgh\u2019s most premier penalty killers, the group has struggled. That continued again on Saturday as Dallas capitalized in the middle frame with two power play goals from Jason Robertson and Miko Rantanen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think at times, we\u2019re not on the same page,\u201d Rust said. \u201cAnd that gives them the half-second to make the play that they need to make. We\u2019ve just got to be more diligent and a little bit more disciplined with our sticks or our feet or whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Justin Hryckowian\u2019s even-strength goal in the second period that made it 2-1, the Penguins found a quick response. Walking into the center of the ice, Karlsson zipped a wrist shot that beat Jake Oettinger and went bar down for his 13thgoal of the season.<\/p>\n
Saturday also marked Karlsson\u2019s ninth multi-point game for the month of March, in which he has 24 points (9G-15A) in 15 games.<\/p>\n
Entering the third period down 4-2, the Penguins were searching for offense as they only had nine shots on goal through the 40 minutes of play. Dallas entered Saturday\u2019s game with the second-fewest goals allowed per game in the NHL with 2.69, a testament to how structured they are defensively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took that extra half-second to maybe look for a pass,\u201d Rust said on the team\u2019s offensive struggles. \u201cShooting lanes closed up and we got shots blocked or we (had) shots that missed the net or we just, at that point, didn\u2019t shoot because there wasn\u2019t a shooting lane.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Penguins were able to pull within one when Elmer Soderblom\u2019s shot from the half-wall banked off of Noel Acciari in the crease and in for his 10th\u00a0goal of the season.<\/p>\n
In the past few weeks, the Penguins have done an outstanding job clawing back into games when they have been down by multiple goals. However, Saturday would give different results as the Stars were able to get two empty net goals and hand the Penguins a 6-3 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we got going in the third, but it\u2019s unfortunate that we couldn\u2019t pull through all the way to the end,\u201d Karlsson said. \u201cI think it was a winnable game with the way that it was played. Kudos to them. They did a good job. They stuck with it longer than we did, and they\u2019re a good team for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
All throughout the game, Stuart Skinner was able to keep it close for his teammates with some of the incredible saves he was making in all situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I thought I was good tonight,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cI thought, as a team, we were good tonight. But Dallas was really good. Those little, very, very small things, very small details that won this game tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Penguins will look to regroup at practice tomorrow before they head into a critical divisional matchup against the New York Islanders on Monday. Regardless of who is in or out of the lineup, everyone has to bring their best.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re not getting up for that one, I think there\u2019s something wrong,\u201d Rust said. \u201cWe all know what\u2019s on the line there. It\u2019s going to be a fun playoff-type of game. We\u2019ve got to go ahead and be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After losing Captain Sidney Crosby\u00a0to a lower-body injury in the last game against Ottawa and already without the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-151302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}