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Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\tCredit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
MONTREAL \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins are not good in the defensive zone. And 14 games into the season, they have shown they\u2019re equally inept at puck management. Even coach Dan Muse admitted he sounds like a broken record, but the Penguins again made bewildering mistakes in the defensive zone, and turnovers cost them yet another game.<\/p>\n
The Penguins smoked their own meats against the Montreal Canadiens, before a furious third-period comeback fell short. The Penguins deservedly lost to Montreal 5-4 at Bell Center.<\/p>\n
However, the comeback wasn\u2019t much of a salve for the Penguins. Captain Sidney Crosby<\/a>, who had a goal and two assists, essentially dismissed it as too little, too late against an opponent who eased up. <\/p>\n \u201cI think just when you\u2019re down, obviously you get a little more aggressive, and sometimes it\u2019s a little bit of us being aggressive and then maybe (them) sitting back a little bit,\u201d said Crosby. \u201cSo, within two, there\u2019s still a lot of hockey left in the game, and I thought we pushed pretty well, and just couldn\u2019t find a way to tie it up.\u201d<\/p>\n The Penguins\u2019 breakdowns were once again ruinous, and rookie goalie Sergei Murashov<\/a> battled his game as much as he battled the puck, allowing a couple of soft goals in addition to the team\u2019s defensive coverage leaving him fully exposed on a few more. <\/p>\n Montreal twice scored two quick goals, 27 and 24 seconds apart, respectively. And they scored several goals on chances NHL teams don\u2019t get but once every few weeks. For the Penguins, they gift can\u2019t-miss chances several times per period. <\/p>\n \u201cI know it sounds like a broken record, but we didn\u2019t play consistently,\u201d Muse said. \u201cI think tonight\u2013hockey is a game of mistakes, so mistakes are going to happen\u2013but you can\u2019t let (them) be able to get two quick ones, or even sometimes just shifts where they\u2019re getting multiple chances back to back. We need to be better at just controlling momentum. And tonight, I thought that factored in.\u201d<\/p>\n Murashov was not sharp Saturday. He put himself and the team in a first-period hole, but the team did little to help. Murashov also rebounded well in the third period, making a few sparkling saves to give them a chance to tie the game.<\/p>\n **Make no mistake, the public consternation over his recent struggles fails to understand that this is indeed what a rebuild looks like. Young players will struggle. Sometimes, they will struggle for a lengthy time. The number of people ready to toss him overboard is as misguided as the team\u2019s defensive coverage. <\/p>\n But as the Penguins\u2019 defensive corps continues to more closely resemble a Penguins defensive corpse, goalies are going to give up five, and losses will mount. It\u2019s time to clean up the personnel on the blue line, and it\u2019s probably time to make plans for that long-awaited, albeit dreaded, rebuild. <\/p>\n It is fair to say after 14 games of the same, of more repeats than summer network TV, this is the Penguins. And this isn\u2019t good enough. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have these areas that a lot of it is very preventable and are things that are within our control \u2026 But right now, it\u2019s just\u2013you can\u2019t play half a game. You can\u2019t play two periods,\u201d Muse said. \u201cLike we need to build on and play a certain way for a full 60 minutes. So there are going to be mistakes. Can we react better after mistakes happen? We can, but we\u2019ve got to figure it out quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Sure, the Penguins can keep working on cleaning up issues, but mistake-prone players are going to make mistakes. The core issue probably deserves addressing, too.<\/p>\n The team has just two regulation wins in 14 games this season. The team is routinely abandoning their goalie, missing assignments, and has more passengers than a Greyhound bus. <\/p>\n Things are not going well, and everyone knows it, even if they can\u2019t admit it. Note Crosby\u2019s dismissive tone about the comeback. Notice Muse\u2019s exasperation in the postgame, as well as the tongue lashing he delivered during the second-period timeout, which speaks volumes. <\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I mean, we\u2019ve got to clean them up. If we don\u2019t, then we\u2019re not going to give ourselves much of a chance to win games,\u201d said Crosby. \u201cSo, whether it\u2019s off the rush or end zone, yeah, we\u2019ve got to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, the Penguins were better when they were depleted and had supposedly lesser players in the lineup<\/a>. Those Penguins were more connected, determined, and played a cleaner game with fewer of their mistake-prone \u201cregulars.\u201d <\/p>\n The Penguins now have the second-worst winning percentage in the Eastern Conference, with no signs of improvement. <\/p>\n Xs and Os<\/p>\n This is the time when social media and fans start to pick their scapegoats and harp on that player\u2019s mistakes. Unfortunately, the Penguins have far too many nominees who are earning their criticism. <\/p>\n **In the first period, the Penguins\u2019 defensemen were discombobulated by Montreal\u2019s forecheck. The pressure was average and certainly wasn\u2019t suffocating, but the team fumbled and struggled to get out of their own zone. Breakout passes went to no one, or worse, to Montreal. <\/p>\n **The breakouts were a little better in the second period, but still not consistent enough to generate speed and attack out of the zone. <\/p>\n **However, the biggest tactical problem remains the D-zone coverage. In a word, it\u2019s awful. Declan Carlile<\/a> is struggling with the Penguins\u2019 system. Twice, he was more than 40 feet from the net on Montreal goals, to the surprise of his teammates, who didn\u2019t cover. <\/p>\n Montreal forward Chris Kreider<\/a> scored the fourth goal when he had three whacks near the crease because Carlile chased the play out to the blue line, and Hendrix Lapierre<\/a> played a zone coverage in the slot, despite needing to cover for Carlile by playing man-to-man on Kreider near the net. <\/p>\n The Penguins stepped into a similar puddle of whoops on Montreal\u2019s third goal, when the Penguins turned a three-on-three rush into a short breakaway. Egor Chinakhov played a soft gap on the puck carrier, and Carlile jumped forward to cover instead of maintaining man coverage on the winger. The duplication meant two Penguins converged on the puck in the high slot, leaving Alexandre Texier all alone. <\/p>\n The goals were far from isolated incidents, but they were a couple of the jaw-dropping gaffes that lit the lamp. <\/p>\n Those two goals were 27 seconds apart. <\/p>\n Is it a matter of too many new faces? Somewhat surprisingly, the defenseman who has been the most stable is lefty Spencer Stastney, who was acquired in the Filip Hallander trade that brought much public and media consternation. <\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I think (some of the issue is the group is still jelling). I mean, I\u2019m still a little new here and still figuring it out, but I mean, it\u2019s a great group of guys,\u201d Stastney said. \u201cI think right now we\u2019re just trying to get those mistakes out of our game in the D zone and be a little more solid there. So I mean, there will be times like tonight where it doesn\u2019t go your way, but hopefully we can bounce back and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n **Even in the offensive zone, Montreal\u2019s tight defensive pressure was one problem. The other was self-inflicted, as the team didn\u2019t hang onto pucks. The cycle game was thwarted by lost battles but also by chucking the puck into open space rather than holding onto the puck to draw defensive attention. As a running theme this season, the Penguins wanted to play on the rush, rather than wear down a mobile crew of defensemen with low possession. <\/p>\n These messes prevent the Penguins from gaining momentum. The deficits allow opponents to play a defensive game with confidence, but also attack with gifted chances. <\/p>\n Penguins Report Card<\/p>\n Team: D<\/p>\n Enough is enough. Four goals pale in comparison to the repeated mistakes. The Penguins converted chances, but nine shots in the first 33 minutes and 10 or 11 shots in the first 37? No bueno. <\/p>\n The Good<\/p>\n Sidney Crosby: A<\/p>\n Crosby just needed a couple of hot dogs and the Montreal crowd to jump-start his season. That was Sidney Crosby. <\/p>\n Rickard Rakell: A<\/p>\n He was good on the puck when the Penguins could play with it in the offensive zone. <\/p>\n Spencer Stastney: A?<\/p>\n He had five shots on goal and cleaned up a few messes. Simple and stable. Given the relative chaos on the blueline, his steadiness shines. <\/p>\n The Rest<\/p>\n Declan Carlile: F<\/p>\n His mistakes and struggles with the system are devastating. He wasn\u2019t making the mistakes early in the season or training camp, but his game has gone off the rails. He as a direct culprit on two goals. <\/p>\n Egor Chinakhov: AWOL<\/p>\n Chinakhov had two shots on goal but four misses. He has just four points (2-2-4) this season, but his impact is notably absent. <\/p>\n Sergei Murashov: Rookie<\/p>\n So, the deal with Murashov is that he\u2019s struggling to slow the game down. He\u2019s not playing a confident, quiet game. Inside the mask, the game looks chaotic, and he\u2019s playing chaotic. In each of his last two starts, he was quite good in the third period, when he admitted the game slowed down for him. PHN asked him if the game slowed down again for him in the third period Saturday, especially after he made a few brilliant saves. He paused for what seemed like an eternity. <\/p>\n \u201cGood question because (long pause). Yeah I don\u2019t have an answer for it right now. Like, it seems like no, it seems like yes,\u201d said Murashov. \u201cLike, you can go in between. like a lot. So, I\u2019ll just take a moment. I will take a look at it, and yeah, we\u2019ll see. But right now, I don\u2019t really know.\u201d<\/p>\n That sounds like a goalie who is getting a little rattled by the shell shock he\u2019s being exposed to by terrible team coverage.<\/p>\n Kuzmenko-Lapierre-Koivunen: F<\/p>\n Kuzmenko remains a non-entity in the Penguins lineup, and it\u2019s probably time to consider Rutger McGroarty in his place.<\/p>\n Overall, the line had one shot at 5v5, but allowed seven. They had one scoring chance, but allowed six. They did not pressure in the offensive zone. <\/p>\n And the Penguins\u2019 messy struggles continue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect MONTREAL \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins are not good in the defensive zone.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[129698,100672,41972,6059,73886,7006,73,75,74,1067,10175,14656,5160,8664,124861],"class_list":["post-318779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-chris-kreider","tag-declan-carlile","tag-egor-chinakhov","tag-filip-hallander","tag-hendrix-lapierre","tag-penguins-analysis","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-rickard-rakell","tag-rutger-mcgroarty","tag-sergei-murashov","tag-sidney-crosby","tag-spencer-stastney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318779","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=318779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}