The Penguins Had That Loss Coming, Need a Course Correction (+)

The Pittsburgh Penguins let the Seattle Kraken hang around. Even with sustained offensive pressure later in the second period when Seattle winger Marcus Johansson broke his stick, and with only two shots allowed, the Penguins and Seattle were scoreless after the second period.

The Penguins veered towards Globetrotter hockey in the third period, but Seattle didn’t play the part of the Washington Generals. Instead, Seattle thumped the Penguins with 18 shots and four high-danger scoring chances. The Penguins had only four shots in the third and one good scoring chance.

The Pittsburgh Penguins deserved their 2-1 (OT) loss.

Head coach Mike Sullivan called the Penguins’ first two periods “fine.”

“I thought the first two periods, we were fine, I thought we could’ve had a little bit more net traffic, and we could have put the puck at the net more than we did–playing against a team that defends hard and defends the inside,” Sullivan said.

Fine was an improvement upon many of the Penguins’ recent periods but still not the crisp, aggressive team that steamrolled opponents through November and December until the extended holiday break. How long and far the Penguins have drifted from that team is becoming a problem.