The Bear Truth: Bruins Overwhelm Sleepwalking Penguins

There are a lot of things to do on a nice Sunday afternoon in the spring. Playing hockey apparently was one of the possibilities that the Pittsburgh Penguins did not seriously consider.

Not for most of it, anyway.

And while they weren’t exactly no-shows at PPG Paints Arena — after all, 20 guys sporting full Penguins regalia were in the building — they managed to be outclassed for most of the first two periods by the team marooned at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

Boston beat them, 4-1, in a game that was that close mostly because Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry kept his team in it much longer than it deserved to be during the first 40 minutes.

Which might be a charitable assessment of Jarry’s coworkers.

“Slow start?” coach Mike Sullivan said. “It was a slow game. Period.”

He added that Jarry was the one Penguins player who turned in a quality performance.

In a season rife with disappointing defeats for the Penguins, this has to rank among the most humbling.

The loss guarantees that the Penguins (33-36-12) will finish with a losing record for the first time since 2005-06, which was Sidney Crosby’s rookie season, and that they will enter the draft lottery in no higher than the ninth slot.

The Penguins were reasonably competitive during the third period, but couldn’t cut into Boston’s lead before Bruins winger Jakub Lauko sealed the outcome with an empty-net goal at 17:30.

Philip Tomasino, who had missed the previous three games while recovering from a concussion, returned to the Penguins’ lineup and worked with Joona Koppanen and Vasily Ponomarev on the fourth line. He also assisted on the Penguins’ lone goal.

The Penguins were awarded a power play at 3:52 of the opening period, when Bruins winger Riley Duran was sent off for slashing. They were unable to generate a shot on Boston goalie Joonas Korpisalo before Duran returned, however.

Penguins defenseman Kris Letang was penalized for slashing Bruins center Elias Lindholm at 10:17, but Boston also failed to capitalize on its chance with the extra man.

The Bruins did manufacture a couple of quality chances against Jarry during that man-advantage. though, and continued to swarm in the Penguins’ end after Letang’s time in the box ended.

Boston carried that offensive momentum through the rest of the period, and Lindholm fought through a Letang check and punched a David Pastrnak rebound past Jarry with three seconds to go before the intermission.

That goal snapped Jarry’s shutout streak on home ice at 148 minutes, five seconds, the second-longest such run in franchise history.

Lindholm scored while Penguins center Evgeni Malkin and Bruins defenseman Parker Wotherspoon were serving roughing minors assessed at 18:47 after a brief scuffle in the Boston zone.

Fabian Lysell made it 2-0 at 7:41 of the second period, when he was unchecked at the inner edge of the left circle before throwing a shot past Jarry while Penguins winger Ville Koivunen was serving a tripping minor.

The Penguins continued to unravel at 11:59, when Morgan Geekie put Boston in front by three. The goal initially was credited to Pastrnak, but it was determined that Geekie’s shot had entered the net before the puck caromed to Pastrnak..

Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov picked up a pair of minors — one for roughing, the other for unsportsmanlike conduct — at 18:02 and the Penguins finally registered a pulse a little more than a minute into the first of those.

Rickard Rakell trimmed the Penguins’ deficit to 3-1 when he set up at the left side of the crease and rapped a Tomasino pass behind Korpisalo with 14.4 seconds left in the period. The goal was Rakell’s 35th, a career high.

Koivunen received the second assist, his fifth point in seven NHL games.

The Penguins have a scheduled day off Monday, then will practice Tuesday at 11 a.m. at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.