The Penguins don\u2019t make many changes from how they finished up last game, with the lone exception being in net where it\u2019s a Sergei Murashov start on day one of the back-to-back.<\/p>\n
The hosting Blue Jackets match up against the secon youngest goalie in the league with the current oldest, Cam Talbot.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh gets the first power play 1:37 into the game and it\u2019s not very good. Bryan Rust goes to the penalty box before it ends, though it didn\u2019t look like they were anywhere close to scoring anyways.<\/p>\n
A bit later, the Penguins get a second power play, and again all momentum goes out the window. Not too long after it ends, Columbus is able to get in for the offensive zone and get to work. Eventually Pittsburgh\u2019s defensive structure breaks down, Kaeden Korczak floats into space high in the zone and no sticks are in the lane through the middle of the ice. That\u2019s bad news when Zach Werenski is out there, the reigning Norris winner makes a great pass to Damon Severson, who has snuck deep into the action and one-times a quick shot by Murashov. 1-0 CBJ.<\/p>\n
Kris Letang heads to the penalty box towards the end of the period.<\/p>\n
Not much to talk about here, Pittsburgh follows up a four-shot first period last game with only three shots in the first tonight. Columbus racks up 12.<\/p>\n
The Pens kill off the rest of the carryover penalty, though they don\u2019t have any more luck controlling the puck. Columbus keeps possession most the time and piles up the shots, taking almost 10 minutes again for Pittsburgh to register a shot on goal.<\/p>\n
With all this pressure, it feels like only a matter of time before the lead is extended and sure enough Columbus scores again on their 26th shot of the night (the Pens are stuck at six, none of them really all that threatening either). Egor Chinakhov bumps a pass back to Korczak, who might have had a chance to do something with it, if not for the relentless CBJ pressure. The puck is turnover over. Mathieu Olivier sees traffic in front and snaps a low shot that Murashov can\u2019t pick up in time. 2-0.<\/p>\n
Things are looking really bleak on this night, Bryan Rust steps up and makes something happen. Boy, does he ever. Rust powers into the net again down the left side of the ice, then pulls the puck back and slams it home. Werenski has the best view in the house to watch it happen. 2-1<\/p>\n
Total shots are 30-10, shot attempts are 64-23. The Pens don\u2019t really deserve to only be down by one, fortunately for them deserve got nothin\u2019 to do with it.<\/p>\n
The Penguins show a few signs of life and for once get to capitalize on their opponent touching a puck to them, instead of the other way around. Malkin and Crosby are close to the net, CBJ bats the puck away but Erik Karlsson holds at the blueline. Karlsson loads up the clapper, it might have hit Rakell, it definitely hit Malkin\u2019s stick and goes in. Unbelievably, this game is tied at 2-2.<\/p>\n
Columbus takes a timeout to stop the momentum and review as a staff to potentially challenge it for goalie interference, they decide against it.<\/p>\n
The Pens play their best hockey of the night in the third. Koivunen goes to the box for an iffy tripping call with 4:07 left to play. Don\u2019t see the refs call that every day. PK comes through at the critical moment.<\/p>\n
Back and forth action, the Crosby-Rust-Letang trio nearly win it for Pittsburgh, then play goes the other way and Murashov bails out the Pens.<\/p>\n
Most 3v3\u2019s can be boring and tactical, this one was a lot of fun with action at both ends of the ice. No one can find a goal though.<\/p>\n
Kent Johnson goes first, he goes slow, fancy deke and a quick shot from in tight beats Murashov with speed.<\/p>\n
Rakell is up for the Pens. He tries to get Talbot to bite, he doesn\u2019t. Save.<\/p>\n
Conor Garland is up for CBJ, Murashov stays with him and makes the save.<\/p>\n
Chinakhov meets his former team with a SO turn, he shoots wide of the net.<\/p>\n
Charlie Coyle can score \u2018n win, but he can\u2019t beat Murashov.<\/p>\n
Kindel has to score to keep the game alive, he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
You never know what will happen in the \u2018rest vs. rust\u2019 outcome when a team has almost a week off like Columbus did coming into this game. Sometimes they\u2019re not so sharp, others they look well-rested and itching to play. Obviously it was 100% in the latter tonight. Shots at one point in the second period were 24-3. The Pens barely could touch the puck and looked about 75% the speed of the Blue Jacket players up to that point. One team was playing their fourth game in seven days and it showed, the other team had a week to prepare and try to get a loss out of their system. It didn\u2019t take long to figure out which one was which.Next up: Murashov. Wow, what a game. He didn\u2019t have a second to let up mentally, he always had to be on. That\u2019s impressive. Great night for him. 43 saves on 45 shots, the second SO stop on Coyle might have been his best of the whole night. Really impressive stuff from the yong netminder.In the first period it took the Penguins over 10 minutes of game action to get a shot on goal. It took nearly as long in the second period as well, at one point going 17 minutes between the first and second to record a shot. Can\u2019t live like that for very long. Luckily they scored on their first shot of the third period that was 3:19 in.The shot domination is one thing, it\u2019s the lack of cohesion that\u2019s the bigger issue. The Penguins are struggling to make the simple plays right now. Common, standard passes. Moving at pace. Getting to loose pucks. Absence of a forecheck. They were not having these issues the first five periods of the season against Philadelphia and Montreal, yet since then have had some very, very ugly moments and long stretches of disjointed play. They\u2019re not \u2018playing connected\u2019 as the buzzwords go. That\u2019s troubling for any number of reasons, not the least that it makes them into a tough watch for most of the night. Luckily they sorted it out enough by the third period and the goalie held them in it that far.A developing theory: watch the first Pittsburgh power play of the game if it happens at 0-0. They don\u2019t even need to outright score a goal, but if they are bad to the point the other team gets some rushes up the ice and\/or shots, the team is at major risk of a shutdown and uphill battle. That happened in this one.Too many similarities to the last game: barely any shots in the first period, looking like it could have been a potential blowout, Rust makes his classic move coming off the left wing to score to bring the Pens within a goal, team falters in third period anyways. Yeah, yeah, we\u2019ve seen this one, move onto the next.Ville Koivunen is starting to draw the ire of opponents after the whistle. Didn\u2019t notice that much last season in the NHL. Happened *all the time* in the AHL, where the other team goes after him for being an annoyance. Definitely a good sign he\u2019s more engaged and more effective to start looking like his AHL self a little more in the NHL.Hendrix Lapierre played 12:03. Box score says he had one giveaway and one takeaway, no shot attempts, no hits, no blocked shots, not out there for a goal for or against. Can\u2019t really remember a single instance of noticing him on the ice, good or bad, aside from noticing him simply skating out there a couple of times. That\u2019s not meant as a compliment.One thing I can\u2019t stop noticing these days is Connor Dewar having the opportunity to get himself out of trouble and completely failing to follow through. Dewar ended up with a 2:03 shift in the second period of being trapped for an extended time. He had the puck on his stick, enough time and space to clear it and couldn\u2019t get it out, while on the penalty kill so there was no risk of an icing stoppage. Occasionally it can happen to anyone but it\u2019s haunting Dewar time and again these last few games. When normally solid and reliable players like that are having major problems it just goes to show how muchThat Korczak is a wanderer in his own end. Might be by design if they\u2019re working in more man concepts or encouraging him to read the play and use his instincts (though I haven\u2019t noticed any other defenders following that lead) but from seeing him for a few games now, he could probably stand to mind the fort a little more and not end up roaming so much.Getting one point in the standings when down 2-0 and looking as bad as the Pens looked in the first half of this game is pretty decent. Seeing Murashov play so well is even more encouraging. Would be nice if the team didn\u2019t require a superhuman effort from the goalie every now and then.<\/p>\n
Right back at it tomrrow, then a couple days off are coming up. This team looks like they can use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins don\u2019t make many changes from how they finished up last game, with the lone exception being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[111671,385,99],"class_list":["post-877158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-game-recaps","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}