Report Card: Penguins Finally Get Angry in Loss, but What Next? (+)

It should not have taken a 2-0 deficit and the specter of a third straight loss for the Pittsburgh Penguins dander to rise. The PPG Paints Arena slumber party had everything but ghost stories and s’mores though the Penguins were marshmallows.

The Penguins lost to the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 on Tuesday night, but the third period blitzkrieg had the hallmark of a team turning point.

The team got angry in the third period. They got mean. They were about to lose to the Buffalo Sabres. The Buffalo Sabres?! And the Penguins launched a third-period attack with 20 shots against Buffalo goalie Dustin Tokarski in the final 20 minutes.

The Penguins allowed only four shot attempts in the third.

“There are things that I see. You know, it’s stuff that we’ll talk about in the room, but I’m a firm believer when you have an opportunity to put a puck on net, you put it on net,” Jeff Carter said. “When you do that when you’re struggling, you just get pucks to the net, get bodies there, good things usually happen.”

Carter had a few pointed comments. What comes next?

The Penguins will talk. They need to, but the tenor and tone of the conversation will be entirely different than it would have been after another sleepwalking loss. The third period changed many of our grades and analysis, too: