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Penguins Locker Room: Eller and Letang Rip Team Effort

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Pittsburgh Penguins Lars Eller

The Pittsburgh Penguins were never really in the game Friday. The Carolina Hurricanes suffocated them from the outset, taking pucks away, squelching rushes, and otherwise provided no room for the Penguins to find a flow.



Eventually, Carolina had a pretty easy 4-1 win at PPG Paints Arena.

The Penguins’ locker room packed their hockey bags quickly. They’ll practice tomorrow at the UPMC Lemieux Complex before boarding a plane for an important four-game road trip against a quartet of talented or hot teams, beginning with the undefeated Winnipeg Jets on Sunday.

More than one player had unpleasant words to describe the Penguins Friday night. Alternate captain Kris Letang didn’t spare feelings as he called out the most primary part of a player’s game preparation: emotional engagement.

In other words, the desire to be there.

“They worked harder than us, and they got rewarded for it,” said Letang.

Despite the Penguins getting 12 shots on goal over five power plays, Letang didn’t have a shot on goal. He was also one of the few players not to wear a minus on the score sheet.

The Penguins championship core led all players in giveaways. Evgeni Malkin had four, while Letang and Crosby had three each. However, there were only part of the team’s malaise.

It just wasn’t there, not on any level, and it’s starting to become a season problem, not just a game problem.

“Early on, you want to find your identity–what your team is going to be made of, and you want to establish that really early. Right now, it’s like a roller coaster,” Letang said. “We had two good periods, one bad, one good game, one bad game. So, we just need to get more consistent. We have all of the talent in the world to have a good team. So (we just need) to get some consistency at this point.”

Lars Eller, who is often the conscience of the locker room, also brought some heat following the game. He was not pleased with the team’s effort or emotional engagement, and he was not shy about saying so publicly.

“There were so many things that needed to be better. The attitude, the energy, the execution,” Eller said. “If those things are better, then we’re probably not playing as much shorthanded. So, we put ourselves in bad spots all the time. I hope we won’t see another game like this.”

Joel Blomqvist

Penguins goalie Joel Blomqvist, who was the best Penguins player Friday, also referenced Eller saying the same to the team privately.

Blomqvist stopped 33 of 37 shots, including a myriad of breakaways and uncontested looks from the scoring zones. The Penguins managed 27 shots, with a handful coming in the garbage time final minutes. Blomqvist had to be very good again, as the Penguins’ defense had a cavalcade of breakdowns against the tight-checking and aggressive one-on-one Carolina system.

Carolina also hit four posts, but sometimes that’s because of the goalie. In whatever way it will be spun, it was a poor night for the Penguins, who are 3-0-0 against teams that missed the playoffs last season but 0-3-0 against teams that did.

“Every player on the team is working toward the same goal,” Blomqvist said. “So I think, as Lars said, we need to find better energy from the whole group. Each player.”

Mike Sullivan

Coach Mike Sullivan was not in a talkative mood following the game, taking the opportunity to give short answers without elaboration.

Was he as disappointed in the effort as Eller and Letang?

“Yes.”

What did he think of the penalty kill that gave up a pair of second-period goals?

“The same as our five-on-five play.”

It was a small victory that Pittsburgh Hockey Now got Sullivan to give a couple of sentences on the Penguins’ defensive issues, but he still wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Where we’re at, I think we’ve probably played three decent games. We’ve probably played three games that didn’t live up to our expectations. Let’s just say it that way,” Sullivan said. “So, for me, we have to have higher expectations of ourselves.”