The Pittsburgh Penguins six-game win streak is officially in the rear view window. After a listless effort against the Ottawa Senators, sans Silovs, the team followed it up with a bad loss against the New York Islanders.
The games were the opposite of one another. Against the Senators the Penguins skaters were terrible and looked uninterested the entire game. Arturs Silovs played a great game, but it wasn’t good enough. Last night, the skaters were really good. The Penguins had a 64.35 xGF%. Unfortunately, the goaltending wasn’t there and the team lost 5-4 in overtime.
Edmonton imports had a rough go of it
As mentioned, most of the Penguins players were ready to go for their important divisional matchup against the Islanders.
Stuart Skinner was not ready to go. He had a poor performance. The fourth goal he gave up was unacceptable. It was an unscreened shot from an acceptable distance to expect a save. Given the time in the game it was a huge turning point.
After a stretch of quality play Skinner has put up two stinkers in back to back games. Last game against the Rangers he had a .750 save percentage and last night it was .783.
The Penguins put up six goals and five goals respectively in those games and won by one, then lost by one in overtime. You should win when you are scoring five and six goals a game. The one way to wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory is to have a goalie who has a save percentage with a seven in front of it.
I think it is important to remember that Skinner is a lot like Jarry in the sense that he has high highs and low lows. He just goes about it differently. While Jarry would make comments absolving himself of the blame, Skinner holds himself accountable.
Meanwhile in Edmonton…
“It’s tough. The chances we’re giving up, some of the shots, they’re tough. It’s a lot of Grade A’s, a lot of breakdowns.
We want to play fast … we want to play in their end,” Jarry said. “When we’re taking some of those chances, they come back at us, and it’s tough. We just have to make sure we’re managing the puck a little bit better.”
Skinner does need to play better, but he is going to go about it in a way more palatable way. He and Jarry aren’t all that different performance wise. It’s the front facing attitude and contract that separate them.
Brett Kulak has done a nice job since joining the Penguins. He has filled the void on the left side of the defense and joined up with Kris Letang to form a competent pairing. Last night, he found himself down low in the 3v3 overtime and directly led to the game winning breakaway.
Personally, I don’t think Kulak’s skill set is built for 3v3 overtime and I think Dan Muse putting him out there deserves some criticism. That said, he is an NHL player and if you’re supposed to be the lone defenseman out there you can’t go that far down low and then throw a muffin at the net. There’s no room for error in 3v3 and this particular error cost the Penguins the game.
Both Skinner and Kulak have made positive contributions to the team. I expect them to keep doing so. They both need to avoid the big mistake moving forward
Novak continues to be important piece
Before the season I was very bullish on Tommy Novak. I thought his skating and spatial awareness were going to lead to good things, namely tangible offense. He started off slow. I even criticized him for being allergic to contact, which I thought was affecting his assertiveness with the puck.
The slow start did not last and he has been an excellent player for the Penguins this season. All the things I was hoping he was going to do, he has. His skating leads to a lot of quality zone entries and buys time for other players to get open. Now that he is playing with Evgeni Malkin and Egor Chinakhov on the wings the things he does best are a perfect complement to what those other two do well.
Novak has a 53.75 xGF% on the year and his 2.16 5v5 points per 60 is what has been poorly lacking on this roster for some time. It has been a while since we’ve seen a center put up legit offense at 5v5 for this team. It makes a world of difference and helps take the burden off of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Last night, you saw Novak’s passing and vision link up with Chinakhov’s deadly shot for yet another goal from the young Russian
Not only does Chinakhov lead the Penguins in goals since coming over, he leads them in 5v5 points per 60 at 2.88. A far cry from the 1.27 he had with Columbus. Novak is one of the reasons for this. His skill set is perfect for a player like Chinakhov.
We are back to having multiple lines giving us entertainment value. This was sorely lacking the past few seasons and made watching the team a chore, at times. When you have Crosby on a line, Malkin on a line, Kindel on a line, and a fourth line with real chemistry, it is way more palatable to watch the product and a lot more fun.
Pittsburgh has one more game before the Olympic break and they are going to be up against it. They are visiting the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night. They are one of the hottest teams in the league as you can see here
Only four of the past 27 games have the Sabres come away with zero standings points in a game.
There’s really no excuse for the Penguins players to not be up for the game. It isn’t a back to back game and they don’t play again until February 26th.
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