Penguins/Jets: No defense to be found, Pens fall 6-3 to Winnipeg

The Pens battle for a bit but soft defensive effort trips them up against the Jets

Pregame

The Penguins make significant changes after coaching was dis-satisfied with the efforts in Friday night’s loss to Carolina. The old “blender” insinuates random ideas come out, but a lot of these make sense to promote worthy players who have been doing well (namely Drew O’Connor and Jesse Puljujarvi into scoring line roles) and re-work the bottom. Valtteri Puustinen is in for his first game of the season and the Ryan Shea for Jack St. Ivany swap continues at the bottom.

Oh, and Alex Nedeljkovic is back for his first NHL start of the season. Tristan Jarry doesn’t even dress and is the rare goalie healthy scratch.

The home team Winnipeg Jets don’t bless us with a full lineup card on social media, but of note is they are not playing all-world goalie Connor Hellebuyck today and giving backup Eric Comrie his first game of the season.

First period

Not too much going on early, Nedeljkovic is tested/welcomed back to the Pens by having to stop a few quality shots in the opening minutes but is up to the task.

Marcus Pettersson takes the first penalty of the game but the Pittsburgh PK holds.

Late in period the Pens get their first power play, they get some looks in the last 20 seconds of the period but don’t score before the buzzer sounds.

No score in the first period, which you don’t see all that often in Penguin games these days. Shots are 11-9 Winnipeg early on.

Second period

The Pens score on the carryover from their first period power play. It is the second group, Rickard Rakell wires a really nice cross-ice pass that Kevin Hayes is able to fire into the open net. 1-0 game.

The Pens get the next goal too. Some good work by their new-look third line and eventually Erik Karlsson puts a puck on net. Comrie leaves a rebound and Lars Eller is right there to take advantage. 2-0 game.

Pittsburgh was about to take a penalty but the Jets decline the power play by scoring before it can be called. 2-1 game, Kyle Connor gets the home team on the board.

The Jets tie the game. Ryan Graves checks Mark Schefeile but then turns away from him and Schefeile collects a rebound to score. 2-2 game.

Winnipeg has enough of the momentum to take the lead before the teams leave for intermission. Eller, surprisingly, turns the puck over on a 4v4 and both Kris Letang and Matt Grzelyck were already flying the zone for some reason and unable to get back in time. 3-2 Winnipeg pulls ahead.

The Pens looked really good in the first 10-12 minutes of the period, playing with a lot of fire and energy. Kinda looked like it took Winnipeg to wake up and play for the afternoon game.

Third period

Eller ties the game back up, making a great second effort to regain the puck and a sharp finish. 3-3.

Winnipeg pulls ahead, Adam Lowry beats Crosby on a draw and somehow instantly there are three Jets in front of the net and only two Penguins. That’s bad math, made worse when Grzelcyk doesn’t impede his player and Lowry has an unobstructed tap in. 4-3.

The Jets add some insurance, Pettersson can’t play a puck up the ice and it’s an instant 3-on-2 rush. Pettersson then plays a zone, lets Mason Appleton get behind him and then the pass get into Appleton alone. Yikes. 5-3.

The Pens don’t go away but can’t get closer. They pull Nedeljkovic with plenty of time left to try and get some goals back but it backfires when Karlsson can’t hold the zone and Nino Neiderreiter is sprung for a breakaway and easy empty netter. 6-3.

Some thoughts

• The line changes added some fresh energy for the Pens, if nothing else. The result ended up the same but they were able to get things going to a much better degree than against the suffocating pressure of Carolina the other night.
• Michael Bunting took a seat for this game, if it was a true meritocracy would Bryan Rust be next? He’s got a ways to go before reaching effectiveness, today having 0 SOG, 2 official giveaways, a minor penalty and being on ice for the last three goals Winnipeg scored. Rust did cede his usual spot on the Malkin-Crosby 5v5 line to Rakell, showing the first small sign that he’s getting brought back in a little. It’s seemingly unlikely Rust would be an outright healthy scratch but one way or another it looks like he needs some kind of jolt to get back to his normal level.
• The Pens don’t have a true alternative to break up the Grzelcyk-Letang pair, but it would be nice if they somehow could throw in the towel on that one. Neither of them think defense and they aren’t playing very complimentary in a way to cover for the other’s shortcomings. That probably shouldn’t be much of a surprise. but try as the Penguins may to make it work, that idea isn’t gaining in compatibility as the games go along.
• But there are more than just individual issues. Team defense on the whole remains a huge problem. Too much of the defense isn’t good at defending (Pettersson is the only one, and even he isn’t in stellar form). Add in when a center like Eller or Crosby flubs a puck or leaves a defensive area and the results are going to be bad. It’s getting exposed on a regular basis right now from strategies to mental and physical failures poor defense is all over the place. And bound to end up in the back of the net.
• Based on that, it’s been difficult to evaluate goalies. Nedeljkovic wasn’t a brick wall but he had some good moments early on to keep the team in the game. The fact the Pens were once up 2-0 and then tied 3-3 in the third period is a testament to good play from the goalie. With how little resistance this team puts up, it’s not tough for the opposition to score 4-5-6 goals in a game. With relative ease.
• If only you could bottle up the start Eller has had this season. Four goals and six points in the first seven games, a lot of quality coming from him early on.
• No points for Crosby but a dogged effort on the game by him. It was nice to see his line have some life added to it in the form of O’Connor. 5 SOG from the captain after none last game. And after the mystery last game of only taking 10 faceoffs, Sid got back to normal-ish by taking 23 of 62 draws of today’s contest.

Road trip continues on Tuesday night in Calgary.