Penguins Grades: Some Terrible Performances, What’s Important in Loss to Kings (+)

When a goalie pulls a team out of the fire, teams often respond. A team should rally behind a goalie standing on his head, but the Pittsburgh Penguins game deteriorated. The LA Kings continued to bombard Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry with four unanswered third period goals in a 6-2 win at the Crypto.com Arena on Thursday night.

Don’t let the 6-2 score fool you. It wasn’t that close.

“…We had many good games in a row, and I think we were out playing the opponents, too. And (Thursday) it was a really bad game for us. We just didn’t deserve to win,” Dominik Simon said.

Yet, the Penguins still had every opportunity to win their 12th in 13 games.

They scored first; the Penguins were 19-2 when scoring first.

The Penguins tied the game 90 seconds into the third period. Despite being outshot 30-17 in the first two periods, the Penguins were even with 18 minutes to play.

“We didn’t have our best. And no, I didn’t see it coming. We’ve played pretty consistent hockey all year long. This obviously wasn’t our best. It was just a struggle all night long for our group,” head coach Mike Sullivan said.

There are two ways to view the game. The Penguins’ memory should be short. Can’t win them all, right? However, lingering issues burned the Pittsburgh Penguins, who have lost two of three. This is one of the games that present a temptation to build bad habits and go the wrong way–or–(to steal an old Clint Hurdle-ism) they shower well and forget it.

First, Sullivan explained the disputed no-icing call, which preceded the Kings game-winning goal.