Penguins/Blackhawks Recap: Crosby scores twice but power play rotten in 5-3 loss

Pregame

Andrei Kuzmenko returns and Sergei Murashov gets the start for the Penguins.

Chicago is happy to welcome their new captain, Conor Bedard, for his first game of the season tonight against the Penguins.

First period

Chicago scores right out the gates 28 seconds in. Declan Carlile gets pressured and passes the puck to the Blackhawks after a bad bounce. A quick pass gets Teuvo Teravainen in front of the net and the Finn finishes. 1-0

The Penguins get it back, it’s a good time for Sidney Crosby’s first goal of the year. This time it’s pressure by Bryan Rust along the wall that creates a turnover and the puck spits back to Erik Karlsson. Karlsson quickly feeds Crosby and the Pens have a 2-on-1. Crosby looks off the pass and calls his own number, blistering a shot past the far side of Spencer Knight. 1-1 game.

Pittsburgh earns the first minor penalty, they barely hold possession of it in the Chicago zone.

Kris Letang takes the first Pittsburgh penalty, the Blackhawks capitalize. After some nice puck movement, Bedard makes a little touch pass to Roman Kantserov who quickly fires it by Murashov. 2-1.

The Pens get another shot at their power play deep into the period. It’s awful.

Shots are 9-7 CHI after 20 minutes. The difference so far is the powerplays, the Blackhawks got one, made it look clinical and scored. The Penguins had two and it was nothing but odious, they’re behind by a goal as a result.

Second period

Nothing on the short carryover power play for the Pens, Nick Robertson draws them another. This one at least spends its time in the right end, think I counted six Erik Karlsson shots wide or blocked or redirected from in front wide, but at this point that’s an improvement.

Kantersov scores his second of the night. Carlile employs a man-concept and skates away from the net marking Patrick Kane. Ville Koivunen isn’t on the same page and doesn’t stick with the pointman, Artyom Levshunov and he gets a ton of space. That leaves Ben Kindel in front of the net to defend and Kantersov is strong enough on his stick to fight him off, with the incoming pass from the outside coming in with no resistance since Carlile has left his spot and Koivunen . 3-1 CHI.

Pittsburgh claws back within a goal, Blake Lizotte shoots on a 2-on-1 rush, he doesn’t score but makes a key play when Knight goes to cover the puck Lizotte beats him there and bumps the puck back out. It finds Robertson and he’s got an easy finish for his fourth goal of the season. 3-2 game.

Shots end up 19-15 PIT after two, and they’re well out in front on shot attempts 42-22. However, Chicago clings to the special teams edge and that is still resulting in a one-goal advantage for them at the second intermission.

Third period

Kaeden Korczak gets caught on the mic yelling a bad word after getting slashed, the refs heed his pain and send the Pens to a fourth power play of the night. Doesn’t work but they don’t lose momentum on it. A bit later on an improvised line, Crosby is out with fourth liners. Connor Dewar works in and takes a shot, Knight leaves an atrocious rebound that Crosby is able to corral and calmly move to his forehand and tuck into the net. 3-3 game.

Egor Chinakhov takes an interference call and Chicago gets a second crack at the power play. The Blackhawks look surgical with their passing but Patrick Kane can’t convert on the best chance they get.

Chicago pulls ahead with 4:18 to play. Teravainen strikes again, from all the way against the left wall. Murashov wasn’t square or set for that angle and the puck sneaks by him. 4-3.

Pittsburgh pulls the goalie for a last push, it doesn’t work out. Tyler Bertuzzi taps in an empty netter with nine seconds to go. 5-3.

Some thoughts

• Great to see Crosby get on the board with his first goal of the year, then add another for good measure. Plenty written (including here) about whether or not to keep the top line together, we saw some pretty good evidence of why it remained together. Rust didn’t get an assist on the play but started the sequence with quality board work. Frequent Crosby collaborator Karlsson made a beauty of a pass and the captain took it from there.
• Recurring note: move the ‘Consecutive games where Nick Robertson has drawn a penalty’ board up to three. His speed forces opponents to take him down. Then he scored a team-leading fourth goal. Why is this guy on the fourth line? (It is a good fourth line and they play a fair share, but still!)
• Too bad those penalties only draw a power play for Pittsburgh. Now up to 0-for-16 in the last five games. Completely disconnected now, if it’s not a lost faceoff it’s the inability to gain the zone with possession, if it’s not that it’s an ill-advised pass that sends it back to square one. Ugly stuff.
• Pittsburgh could take notes from looking no further than the video Chicago’s power play, which was dreadful coming into tonight, but then again they didn’t have Bedard until today. The Blackhawks’ point guy was creeping to the tops of the circles at time, common on a 5v3 but rare to shrink the ice that much and put so much pressure on a PK. They got setup and their passing had a purpose to look for back door plays and set up dangerous players on their shooting sides (Bedard on the left, Kane on the right). It was a thing of beauty.
• Power play ends up 0/4 on the night and the PK gives up a goal. Team ends up behind by one goal (pre-EN goal). Tale as old as time. Identifying the issue (and it’s clearly on the power play side) is the easy part.
• If you had a dime for every 2-on-1 rush in this game you wouldn’t be able to retire but you would have enough change to buy something out of a vending machine. (Do vending machines still exist? Or even accept cash? These are the intrusive thoughts when games are played outside of the Eastern time zone). Neither team was exactly sharp to details or keeping their defensive structure in close order with all the odd man rushes flying around at both sides of the rink.
• One player not all that involved in the rush offense: Chinakhov. It was off the charts good last year when the sun was shining and all was well, seemingly to vanish for the start of this season. Naturally, as this thought comes into mind during the second intermission, Chinakhov did get a rush shot immediately on his first shift of the third period, for his first and only shot on goal of the game. Ideally there’s more to come there.
• Which I guess a hallmark of this Pens team that is starting to develop is they’ll mostly play to the level of the competition. They were strong, sharp, focused against what they knew would be a tough Dallas team last game. Tonight, they surely had to know Chicago isn’t exactly a powerhouse, and wouldn’t you know some details slip and the overall effort/performance left a lot to be desired. This theory will get put to the test in coming games with tough matchups ahead against Colorado and Vegas, but hey, maybe the Pens will be ready to meet the challenge. Based on the past couple of games that wouldn’t be shocking.
• Still don’t know what Carlile was thinking staying with Kane and abandoning the net. Kindel in front of the net will draw the kneejerk, base reaction but Carlile + Koivunen not being on the same page is the troubling pressure point in that play. Plenty to still iron out in that department.
• A couple of different things can be true, while the Penguins didn’t particularly play a great game, they found themselves tied with under five minutes to play in regulation. Murashov, on a night where Moneypuck had his xGA just under two, can’t really be faulted for any of the first three goals. But an NHL goalie has to stop what held up as a game winner 100 times out of a 100 for a team to have a fighting shot, especially that late in a tie game. Bad goals are the type of learning curve and growing pains a team signs up for when they go with a 22-year old in net at this level, occasionally that type of thing happens. Murashov earned the team a point they didn’t deserve in his last start in Columbus, tonight he might have cost them at least one. So it goes, onto the next.

And onto the next indeed. The degree of difficulty ramps up on the next leg of the road trip, Pittsburgh will need to be better almost from top to bottom in their next game against Colorado. On the bright side, at least Crosby showed he’s back on track