Penguins/Mammoth Recap: Comeback effort falls short, Pens lose 5-4

Pregame

The Penguins make nearly wholesale changes to their lines. Egor Chinakhov is back from injury and playing on the top line. Rickard Rakell moves down to the third line, Nick Robertson bumps back to the fourth line. Elmer Soderblom is out of the lineup, as is Sam Girard. The Pens respond to that by shaking up all their defensive pairings, putting Spencer Stastney up with Erik Karlsson and slotting Ilya Solovyov in for his first NHL game of the season with Kris Letang. Declan Carlile moves to join Kaeden Korczak on the other pair. Arturs Silovs gets the start.

Utah throws out this lineup, no John Marino tonight and rookie goalie Sebastian Cossa is in the net.

First period

A lot happening in the early going, Blake Lizotte gets tripped behind his net and draws a penalty 19 seconds in. The Pens get some good fortune, Karlsson’s shot-pass hits off defender Mackenzie Weegar and plops into the net.

The lead doesn’t last long, Utah finds an equalizer off an offensive zone draw, Clayton Keller bulls to the net and wires a backhander in. 1-1.

The Mammoth take the lead, sneaking a cross-ice pass back to Mikhail Sergachev. Sergachev shoots from the point, the puck bounces off Silovs and Kevin Stenlund flips it home before Carlile or Silovs can stop him. 2-1 Utah.

Silovs makes a few nice saves, Novak gets a good chance in front but the angling of his shot throws it mostly into the goalie. Pens out-shot 16-6 and fortunate to only be behind 2-1 after 20.

Second period

Lots of icings early in the second period as the game gets choppy. Might not be the worst for the Penguins to try and muck it up instead of long stretches of free-flowing play against this opponent.

Pittsburgh gets a second power play and a second PPG, Rust feeds Rakell and the Swede gets off the schnide with his first goal of the year to quickly step out and beat Cossa with a shot to the far post. 2-2 game.

Utah gets the first chance of the night for their NHL-leading power play, the Pens do well to hold them off the board. The Mammoth score at even strength, more problems for Carlile in front of the net with traffic. Silovs guesses the shot will be to his right, turns out it’s to his left. He never saw Nate Schmidt’s shot until it was in the net. 3-2.

The Mammoth extend their lead, the Pens defensemen mark players outside the zone, Schmidt makes a nice pass over to Kailer Yamamoto. Chinakhov is the nearest player back and he can’t get there in time to offer help, which probably is not how the Pens would draw up their defensive schemes. 4-2.

Sidney Crosby and Andrew Peeke joust with dueling cross-checks in front of the net, Crosby doubly frustrated surely after almost scoring but getting stopped. Crosby swings around with an elbow to the face, both go to the penalty box.

Pens down two and not looking very good again in this one.

Third period

No Bryan Rust for the start of the third period and it goes from bad to worse when Blake Lizotte takes an early penalty. The Utah power play surgically moves the puck all over the ice, eventually they get it down low to Nick Schmaltz and he puts in a goal on the backhand. 5-2.

Some hope emerges when Andrei Kuzmenko makes a play over for Chinakhov. Chinakhov uses his speed to skate around the defender and fires a shot in for his first goal since opening night. 5-3 game with still 17:05 to play.

The game ambles along, the Pens find a way to get within a goal. Cossa kicks out a Kaeden Korczak shot right to Carlile. The defender atones for some of the wrong end of the highlights he’s been on tonight by slamming in a goal of his own. 5-4, 5:05 to go.

Silovs gets pulled with about 1:30 to go. Utah ices the puck a couple times, the Pens get a strong push but throw a few shots wide and Ben Kindel is denied in front seconds before the buzzer.

Pittsburgh falls in regulation to complete a winless road trip.

Some thoughts

• Lots of changes tonight, after giving it about a month and needing to switch the defense up due to Girard’s absence, the Pens opted to do more than just cosmetic surgery. Girard was at the game day skate this morning and might not be out too much longer, it’ll be interesting to see what the decisions are at that point.
• To which, there might be lasting shuffling needed. Carlile’s play started off the season strong but has dropped. He lost the spot with Karlsson and his work in front of the net wasn’t good video to put out there in his own zone.
• Subtle change on the power play too, with Rust getting up to the first group for the first time this season. Had to laugh when the camera showed an up close view of his first puck touch on the power play, where he attempted a 15-foot pass where a stick was already in the lane and easily knocked it away. Goes to show changing the pieces around the board doesn’t always result in differences, though Rust cleaned it up quickly and went onto have two power play assists on the night.
• Defensively, yet again, the Pens are a little too lax. Stastney drifted too far up the ice for the situation and the puck got won by Utah on the first goal…Carlile and Malkin let a pass go through them, then Carlile got beat at the front of the net by a big, strong player when Silovs coughed up a rebound. Defensemen get pulled away front the net, predictable results happen. At this point, that’s who they are to routinely have slip ups that could come from practically any player at any given time and at this level the punishment is usually going to happen to have to pay for it.
• On the bright side, and you might as well seek some silver linings at the end of an 0-4-0 road trip (and broader 1-6-1 recent record) two power play goals was nice to see get back on track. As mentioned in the preview, Utah’s PK’ing and goaltending have been their biggest weakness thus far in the season and that was on display in this one. Unfortunately that wasn’t a big enough factor compared to their strengths at 5v5.
• Rakell’s power play goal was enough to get him back on the Crosby line shortly after in the second period. Might as well try to find that hot hand whereever it exists, and it’s not like Chinakhov was doing much upon his first look on that line.
• Other encouraging signs were seeing Rakell and Chinakhov break long goal droughts. Maybe the Pens have found something to move forward with on the Chinakhov+Kuzmenko pairing too, which they stumbled across due to the apparent Rust injury.
• It was nice to see them not skate into the sunset easily. They didn’t fold up the tents and go down without trying, just dug too deep a hole to get out of tonight. This game at least they looked hungry and like a 2025-26 version of the team scrambling to mount a comeback effort. Last year they were pretty good at that, scoring 10 goals with an empty net. Wasn’t to be today, though it was mighty close with Kindel on the doorstep near the death of the game.

In the end, the Pens were the second best team on the ice tonight, as they have been often lately. They’re having problems outscoring their problems because their issues have been too numerous and too costly to overcome. That’s a tough lesson that’s been repeated several times on this ill-fated road trip that left them without a win, or even an OT loss, and has them returning home in a major funk.