Penguins/Blue Jackets Recap: Pens blow another late lead, lose in shootout

Pittsburgh had a 3-1 third period lead, but frittered it away and ended up with a shootout loss

Pregame

Surprise bad news for the Penguins, Evgeni Malkin doesn’t take the ice for warmups and is out for his first game since April of 2022. Jesse Puljujarvi is in for his first game in a month. Tristan Jarry in net.

First period

Poor start for the home team, Erik Karlsson takes a penalty and Columbus scores on the power play. Dmitry Voronkov gets his big body to the front and redirects a shot/pass from Kirill Marchenko to put the Blue Jackets on the board 3:20 into the game.

Perhaps dazed by the early goal, the Pens do almost literally nothing all period. They manage just three shots on goal and look noticeably slower than Columbus all over the ice. Not great.

Voronkov takes the first CBJ penalty late in the period, no goal but there’s carryover time for Pittsburgh in the second.

Second period

The Pens make the most of the power play time and score. Sidney Crosby heels a shot but the puck fortuitously makes its way to Michael Bunting. On possibly the slowest goal possible, Bunting uses a stationary stick to meet the puck and it ever so slowly over drifts into the net. Counts the same. 1-1 game, 51 seconds into the second.

Each team gets 11 shots in the second, but no more goals or power plays as the game ambles on.

Third period

Like the first two periods, there’s a goal early in the final frame as well. It starts as a routine looking defensive zone draw for the Penguins. Erik Karlsson skates the puck through the middle since he’s given room to do just that and makes a nice enough looking pass to Rickard Rakell streaking up the left wing. But there’s nothing routine about the beautiful shot Rakell snaps to the top corner of the net past Elvis Merzlikins. 2-1 Pens, 24 seconds into the third.

The Pens strike again. Crosby gets his skate on a Cole Sillinger clearing attempt, then banks the puck off the back of the net away from Sillinger and quickly centers it for Rakell. Rakell quickly buries it before Merzlikins knows what happens the puck hits him and goes into the net. 3-1 for some breathing room with 9:51 to play.

Dmitry Voronkov wants in on scoring two goals tonight. Jarry fails to clear the puck and a broken play with the puck bouncing around ends up on Voronkov’s stick for a quick finish. 3-2 with 7:55 to play.

With 3:51 to play, Blake Lizotte takes a bad penalty to give CBJ a crack at it, and they make the most of it. A couple of fancy passes leads to Adam Fantilli redirecting one from the bumper area that beats Jarry to the far post. 3-3 with 2:36 in regulation.

Overtime

Columbus wins the first draw but their shot attempt is blocked into the net by Karlsson.

Noel Acciari wins the second faceoff, the Pens hold the puck for a minute but Crosby’s shot is stopped by Merzlikins.

Pittsburgh holds the puck for much of OT but can’t create a goal, Bryan Rust has one last chance to tuck it in near the end but hits the post.

Shootout

Kent Johnson starts the shootout, he shoots five hole quickly and snaps it in quickly. 1-0.

Rust goes first for the Pens, he tries to shoot low but Merlikins stops him.

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Fantilli starts Round 2, he dekes and tries to go forehand but runs out of space.

Crosby stickhandles a lot, might have lost it, doesn’t get much on it.

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Marchenko gets the chance to win it for CBJ, and he does. Quick low shot finds its mark.

Some thoughts

• Nothing probably talks about the state and depth of the Penguins more than the fact Anthony Beauvillier was in line to be a healthy scratch tonight, but due to the Malkin injury ended up on the second line. There’s just not a lot there.
• Weird development on Malkin not playing, he participated in the morning skate today with no indications of any issues, but missed warmup and ended his streak of 209 straight games played. Bummer, since coming back from his knee surgery in early 2022, the big guy hasn’t missed a game to injury in a long time (the last time he was out was due to a four-game suspension).
• 209 games isn’t Malkin’s career high, if you were wondering. He was healthy (after the training camp injury) from his rookie debut into the 2009-10 season to stack up more games.
• Jesse Puljujarvi has had a swirl of off-ice things, a possible trade request was met with the team outright waiving him, only to find no takers. He would have been needed tonight one way or the other but was planned to come into the lineup even before the Malkin injury. Puljujarvi’s return was mostly quiet: 1 SOG (3 total attempts), 1 official giveaway in 13:37 of work.
• Kevin Hayes would earn his salary cap hit and then some if some of his natural inclination in the offensive zone to attack the net and general chance creation would rub off on the similar-sized player of Cody Glass. Wouldn’t hold your breath on that actually happening, but there’s just that little bit of aggression or assertiveness missing from Glass’ game in the key area.
• One other player you always hoped would add just that little extra degree of aggressiveness is P.O. Joseph and he stood out there tonight. Only had two official hits, but he was throwing the body around, playing with some force and stood out a bit to actually go for it. Good thing, this is probably about his last chance at sticking and while it’s not like he was Chris Pronger or anything, solid night for him.
• Jarry updated early goal counter: sixth time of the year he’s given up a goal on the game’s very first shot, 14th out of 19 times it’s happened with in the first five shots of the contest. This was a clean tip from right in front but the sheer amount never ceases to astound.
• Crosby was heralded on the broadcast for winning the most faceoffs in NHL history tonight when he won his 15,183th career draw in the second period to pass Patrice Bergeron (though the league has only officially tracked the stat since the 1997-98 season). Nice enough, I suppose, though players like Steve Yzerman and Mark Messier played the bulk of their careers before 1998 (and have played 200+ and 400+ more games than Sid, respectively) and Bryan Trottier played all his career before 1998, so does Crosby really have the most faceoff wins in NHL history? Probably not, but stat keeping is stat keeping.
• 20 goals on the season for Rakell! And the season is barely past half over, great redemption for him.
• There’s got to be some things more painful than the Pens in a shootout, maybe it’s them with a lead in the third period. Rotten effort there to fumble two points into one. I don’t really bat an eye when a 2-0 lead against Carolina in the second period goes to OT, but up 3-1 at home against Columbus with 8-9 minutes to go has to be a win. It wasn’t.

Well, it doesn’t get any easier for the Pens, losers of three straight in extra time. Their kryptonite of Edmonton come to town on Thursday.