Penguins Report Card: Crosby Fight, Heavy Pressure, Is Team Prepared to Play?

In the middle of the second period, Pittsburgh Penguins winger Rickard Rakell had an uncontested scoring chance on Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck from about 20 feet away. Hellebuyck easily made a glove save on a play Rakell has converted dozens of times in his career, and the dejection crumpled his shoulders. It’s simply the latest signal the Penguins are realizing their new status in the hockey world is not predator but prey.

And it sure seems the team is losing a lot of belief in itself, too.

The Penguins managed just 13 shots in the first 40 minutes against the Winnipeg Jets Friday in a 4-1 loss at PPG Paints Arena. It wasn’t that the Penguins were playing terribly, though a couple of inexplicable and otherwise terrible plays by top players gift-wrapped a couple of goals for Winnipeg.

Giving the best team in the NHL even a one-goal lead is far too much, but a two-goal lead? Seriously, what kind of team would blow a multi-goal lead? Oh, wait, never mind.

Ready to Play?

For the sixth time this season, the Penguins have yielded a goal on the first shot of the game. Tristan Jarry has been in the net four of those times, including Friday. PHN asked coach Mike Sullivan about the phenomenon, and the coach shot back.

“Can you explain it? Can you explain it? Because I can’t,” Sullivan said with stern emphasis.

Any blame for this first-shot-first-goal episode was squarely on the generally pathetic and lazy play of Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson. Both showed a mystifying lack of urgency or care in possessing the loose puck despite a lack of forecheck pressure.

Moments later, Nino Niederreiter was alone with acres of space in front of Jarry.

While Sullivan may have punted the opportunity to rip some of his players, Jarry was uncharacteristically blunt.

“I don’t know what to really say about it … I think it’s a mindset,” said Jarry. “Just defending a little bit harder in our zone and just making sure that we’re prepared for the first five minutes. I think it includes all of us from the goaltender out, and I think it’s tough when you’re starting games down 1-0 early when goals are hard to come by.”

As Jarry fights to come back from a disastrous start this season, it must be doubly frustrating to be fed to the wolves against a team as good as Winnipeg.

Of course, in many of Jarry’s previous starts, perhaps he was the one who first fed his team to the wolves.

It’s all part of the Penguins’ struggles this season. Get the goaltending, lose the offense. Get offense, lose the defense. When they get all three, it seems they make ungodly mistakes until the other team erases a multi-goal lead.

Welcome to the Penguins 2024-25 season. Please keep your hands inside the car and do not stand up until the ride comes to a full and complete stop. Those with heart issues or back problems should not ride this ride.

Just as Rakell stared to the heavens after not converting a couple of high-danger chances, he, too, admitted the pressure to score because his team wasn’t getting many chances. Rakell is one of the few Penguins with the ability to put the puck in the net, and he’s admittedly feeling the pressure in a much larger way. They are, indeed, gripping their sticks too tightly because they know chances are not plentiful.

“Maybe not. But I mean, it’s difficult to say. I think we, in the first two periods, didn’t really have many great looks,” Rakell told PHN. “Maybe you’ve got to trust yourself a little bit more when you get those looks. You want it so bad, you only get so many.”

Rakell is invested in this team and this season.

Penguins Game Analysis

In the Xs and Os of the game, the Penguins were mediocre for most of the game. They were not bad, but they were not engaged or aggressive either. They were a step above going through the motions but a step below playing with energy …until Sidney Crosby had enough.

Down 3-0 early in the third period, Crosby went after Winnipeg winger Kyle Connor, who had little choice but to accept the fight from Crosby. It wasn’t an epic heavyweight battle, but Crosby did land a flush right hand.

SIDNEY CROSBY AND KYLE CONNOR DROP THE GLOVES AND GO AT IT 😳 pic.twitter.com/diuvLyIMFw

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 23, 2024

The Penguins had only five shots in the third period, which equaled their lowly total from the second period, but they were a much better team after the fight.

Too little too late. The first 40 and even the last 20 minutes were not good enough.

“We’re going to continue to push the group to engage more physically at both ends of the rink … I just think we’ve got to get into people more on the defensive side,” Sullivan said. “We got to get over pucks on the offensive side so that we can force teams to expend energy defending us. Right now, we don’t have nearly enough offensive zone time. We’re not earning the good ice down by hanging on the pucks and forcing them to defend us.”

Penguins Report Card

Puljujarvi-O’Connor-Poulin: C+

They were the only line that had an even Corsi (8-8) and a positive scoring chance ratio (4-3). They didn’t light the lamp, but at least they didn’t lose their battle like the other lines.

Beauvillier-Crosby-Rakell: D

They had a couple of moments of pressure before Sullivan broke up the trio, putting Rakell on the left wing and Bryan Rust on the right. Still, the line had only two scoring chances in over nine minutes of 5v5 play.

The Penguins are a top-heavy team, and when opponents squash the top, it flows downward.

Owen Pickering: A

You may not have noticed him, and that’s a very good thing. He neutralized the threats in his area, made the plays on the puck he had to make, and kept his nose clean. Pickering also defended the net front well.

Erik Karlsson: F

His half-hearted play on the first goal was bad, and his slow transition and pedestrian backcheck on the second goal were visibly disengaged.

Team: D 

They go from an F to a D because of some pushback in the third period. Otherwise, they wasted the intense practices of the last two days. In working the room, it’s quite clear there is some tension as players blame themselves. Rakell was taking it hard. Others were not.

Mike Sullivan: No grade is needed

Truth? It surely seems some veterans are showing a lack of faith in the team, and there is no fix (unless general manager Kyle Dubas can start offloading some underperforming veterans). Still, no coach will be able to fix players in their 30s who are losing faith not in the coach but in their team and their season.

As Alfred E. Newman said, “What, me worry?” It seems a few players are adopting that mantra. There’s no other excuse for lazy backchecks and skating past loose pucks with a cursory swat toward a teammate.

Mistakes happen. Effort should never wane.

Sullivan rolled Vasily Ponomarev for a full share of ice time. It was the same with Sam Poulin, despite the coach having a little discussion with the rookie on the bench, and Sullivan worked hard to shelter Owen Pickering without babying him. Believe it or not, Sullivan is taking care of the kids.

It’s the veterans who are letting the team down.