Penguins/Wild Recap: Fleury victorious in final trip to Pittsburgh, Pens’ losing streak reaches six

Marc-Andre Fleury gets the last laugh

Pregame

The Penguins use some different combinations from yesterday’s practice even but are sticking with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the same line. Joel Blomqvist gets the opportunity in net.

First period

The Penguins get an early power play but it’s awful, they get a second crack at it and they score! Valtteri Puustinen makes his first shot on goal of the season a good one, getting a fortunate deflection off a defender and jumping past Marc-Andre Fleury. 1-0 Pens.

Pittsburgh builds on it, Sidney Crosby makes a pass from behind the net like only he can all the way back to the point. Kris Letang finds Rickard Rakell, whose spinning shot of a rolling puck jumps up to the top corner of the net mighty quickly. 2-0.

It wasn’t a sign of things to come. The Pens can hide Ryan Graves from everything, and his low percentage backhand clearing attempt up the wall hits the ref and causes a turnover. Jakob Lauko doesn’t have much of an angle but finds the one little gap that Blomqvist doesn’t have sealed to the post and tosses a puck in. 2-1.

Minnesota strikes again 53 seconds later. Matt Grzelcyk is, well, not sure what he’s doing peeling away from a player in the slot with the puck to allow Freddy Gaudreau all the time and space needed to tie the game.

Pittsburgh takes a penalty late in the period, Lars Eller doesn’t do much to Kirill Kaprizov but it’s deemed roughing. Cool.

Shots are 15-9 to the Wild. The Pens were in good shape but Blomqvist giving up a softie opened the door in a big way.

Second period

Gaudreau gets the better of the Pens again 1:38 into the second to put the Wild ahead. Graves mindlessly skates forward, possibly not realizing a Minnesota line change put a player behind him. Whoops. One lead pass later and Gaudreau is in free. 3-2.

Brock Faber gets mixed up with Sidney Crosby behind the play and then Jack St. Ivany drops the gloves with Faber. Nice of St. Ivany to look out. He also might have snatched the chain off Faber’s neck, so that’s cool too. St. Ivany picks up an extra two for instigating, even though he didn’t instigate as much as initiate.

Pittsburgh puts together some nice sequences of pressure but can’t quite score. Lars Eller hits a post from in tight on a scramble but it stays out.

Some bad luck strikes late in the second, Kris Letang’s chop of the puck ends up going to the one player it shouldn’t (Kaprizov). The star makes a spinning pass right on the tape of Mats Zuccarello for a tap-in. 4-2.

Shots are 10-10 in the second, but the period is opened and started by two primary assists from Kaprizov to send Minnesota out to a two-goal lead at the final break.

Third period

The Pens aren’t deflated, Crosby wins a puck back and Marcus Pettersson sends in a deflectable shot/pass that Rakell tips past Fleury. 4-3 with 16:34 to go.

Anthony Beauvillier takes an offensive zone tripping penalty about halfway through. Kevin Hayes then trips a Wild player to give a short 5v3 power play. Minnesota takes their timeout to give their top guys a break.

The Pens kill off the first penalty but then Eller airmails a clearing attempt from the d-zone to put Pittsburgh back in a 3v5 situation for 56 seconds this time. They do a great job and kill it all off to keep their hopes alive.

Blomqvist is lifted with 90 seconds to go for one last push. Doesn’t work out, Kaprizov buries an empty net from distance to seal the deal.

Fleury is named first star of the game and takes a victory twirl to cheers after the final buzzer.

Some thoughts

• Well, the game started off well enough. A power play goal! The new-look first line strikes! It was all downhill from there and not just a race to two goals, unfortunately for the Pens.
• As usual, poor team defense abounds. Graves got some bad luck to hit the ref, but a player creates his own bad luck by needlessly wheeling to the backhand and flinging a hopeful clear up the glass. Grzelcyk continues to serve no purpose and even someone like Anthony Beauvillier was tracking Zuccerello all around the defensive zone before inexplicably losing him at the net at the worst time.
• That said, good players make plays. Kaprizov is right on that edge of MVP tier players (15 points in eight games this season, three straight 40+ goal years). He made some things happen out there, gotta tip the cap when that
• It was good to see Marc-Andre Fleury back one more time. I was thinking that so much has changed, even the longtime Pens’ trainer (Chris Stewart) and equipment manager (Dana Heinze) are gone by now; save for Mike Sullivan Letang, Malkin and Crosby the organization is almost completely different from the one Fleury left not all that long ago.
• Drew O’Connor already has two SH goals on the season and had a chance for another tonight. That’s nice and all to see him flash there, but it’d be a little better to see it at even strength too.
• Some really strong 3v5 work by O’Connor and Marcus Pettersson in particular though. Their strong play in the third helped extend the game and keep the Pens a shot away.
• Kevin Hayes only took one shift in the second period (after being on ice for one of the first period GA’s) and when he took his penalty in the third that was only his third shift of that period. Not sure how large the doghouse can get right now but there are no shortages of candidates to fit in there.
• Puljujarvi also got the treatment of one shift in the second period and just two in the third. Mostly bench shortening, but presumably for a reason. Prior to this game the Pens were pretty content to roll lines fairly evenly but this was the first time a forward or two was stapled to the bench for a protracted amount of time.
• The first goal Blomqvist gave up tonight was maybe the first huge sign of his youth and inexperience. He wasn’t tight enough to his post and a goalie isn’t going to get away with that at the NHL level. This isn’t to goalie blame but point out that living with a 22-year old netminder is going to mean seeing some painful learning moments play out in real time.
• Say what you will about the Pens blowing leads or just plain not measuring up to their opponents on most nights, but at least Pittsburgh doesn’t quit. Even when they’re losing, they don’t stop working and trying. The end results are trouble on their own but for all the issues the team has (and, as we all know there are many) at least.

The Pens give it a go in hopes to break their now six-game losing streak on Thursday at home against Anaheim.