Penguins/Capitals Recap: Pens tripped up by Caps, fall 4-1

Pittsburgh ruins Washington’s shutout streak, but that’s about it

Pregame

The Penguins get good news in that Kris Letang is able to play after missing one game with illness. But in bad news, sickness is lingering around the team since P.O. Joseph is down sick tonight. Forwards remain the same and youngster Joel Blomqvist is in net for his first NHL game since early November.

First period

The Capitals carry play early, getting the majority of the shots to start the game. They make it count 7:42 into the contest when Jacob Chychrun leans into a heavy shot from near the blueline that deflects off of Anthony Beauvillier’s stick and flies into the other side o the net that Blomqvist doesn’t expect. 1-0 WSH.

The Penguins do better over the course of the second half of the period and even the shots out, aided by the first power play of the game - of which they’re unable to score.

Shots are 9-8 Caps through one.

Second period

The teams battle on the in second, the Pens have the puck a lot but the Caps keep them almost entirely to fighting for space around the outside.

Rickard Rakell heads to the penalty box and Pittsburgh kills it off before surrendering a goal soon after. Marcus Pettersson turns the puck over behind the net and nice, quick passes from Connor McMichael and PL Dubois set Aliaksei Protas up from point blank to rip it home. 2-0 game.

Beauvillier trips a Capital towards the end of the period and hostilities open up. Michael Bunting and Martin Fehervary join Beauvillier in the box, McMichael escapes a penalty despite being the most aggressive out of anyone on the ice, because NHL officiating.

Caps outshoot the Pens 11-6 in the second and pad their lead by a goal.

Third period

Marcus Pettersson gets whistled for tripping, but the Pens’ PK again stands strong, avoiding danger when John Carlson hits the crossbar in the same exact place twice above the right left shoulder of Blomqvist.

Evgeni Malkin gets hooked later to send Pittsburgh to a power play, but little comes of it. Soon after, back-and-forth play leads to a rush for Sidney Crosby to pass to Bryan Rust. Rust curls and drags around a sliding Carlson and rips a shot to break a 198 minutes shutout streak for Logan Thompson. 2-1 Caps with 8:31 to play.

Letang trips a Cap with 4:04 left to go. Pittsburgh kills it off once again but loses two minutes. The Pens almost survive again before the puck ramps in off Ryan Graves’ stick and into the net. 3-1 late.

The Pens pull the goalie, and well, at least they don’t let Alex Ovechkin pad his totals with an easy one. Brandon Duhaime gets it though. 4-1 Caps with the icing on the cake.

Some thoughts

• Conventional wisdom is that the team on the second night of a back-to-back (as the Penguins were tonight) while facing an opponent off the night before usually start out hot and then tend to fade once legs and energy drain as the game goes on. That wasn’t the case tonight in a troubling early sign. Washington got eight of the nine first shots, including a goal and not including a very solid shot off the post. A hot start was imperative for the visitors, considering the circumstances, and it pretty much couldn’t have gone opposite of that.
• Pretty blah game for the Pens, after two periods they only had 14 shots on goal. Crosby (4) and Rakell (3) made up half of those SOGs and even though the shots were recorded it was a pretty anonymous performance by them. Nothing popping out.
• Rust finally got the Pens on the board, scoring his third goal in as many games.
• Bad time to play the Caps, points now in 10 straight, haven’t lost in regulation in this young calendar year and goalie Logan Thompson was coming into the game on a two-game shutout streak.
• PK was good tonight at least, going 3 for 4 and being six seconds away from escaping unblemished against an always-dangerous Caps club. 0:00 of SH time for Beauvillier tonight after he got trapped in a bad spot for a goal against last night.
• Blomqvist was sealing up the bottom of the net but his re-education to the NHL will have to ensure he doesn’t get too small in the net. The Caps were shooting high all night (as most NHL teams are wont to do). The crossbar kept a couple of Carlson shots out to help but the youngster is going to want to readjust his depth (as seen on the third period goal against with him anchored pretty deep in his crease) or consider how to block off the top half of the net now that he’s back up in the big time.