Penguins Report Card: Jarry Saves, Pens Overcome Fatigue & Bad Decisions (+)

It wasn’t pretty for most of the first 40 minutes. The Pittsburgh Penguins had an afternoon game and a chance to win five straight. For most of the game, they hung their All-Star goalie Tristan Jarry out to dry like Amish laundry day. The Winnipeg Jets didn’t pepper Jarry with large volume but traded quantity for quality. Extremely high quality.

The Penguins surged in the third period, and Jarry got the credit he deserved as the Penguins won 3-2 in a shootout at PPG Paints Arena.

It was the Penguins third game in less than four days, and they made a lot of bad decisions with the puck. A lot…

“For the most part, every team in the league is playing a heavy schedule right now, and we’re no different. You know, this was our third game in three and a half days. That’s a challenge of your resilience, and sometimes fatigue can manifest itself in a number of different ways. For me, the first thing that it costs is your decision-making ability, and that’s where I think we have to maintain a certain focus,” head coach Mike Sullivan said.

Scorekeepers tagged the Penguins with 12 giveaways, compared to five for Winnipeg, which was also credited with nine takeaways. That’s a lot of pucks lost.

The Penguins played their third game in less than four days. It looked like it…until the alarm clock went off in the third period. The PPG Paints Arena crowd, apparently storing up its energy, exploded as the Penguins scored two goals in nine seconds midway through the third period.

The third period pop when Carter scored was one of the loudest moments I’ve experienced at PPG.

We’ll get to the specifics of the Winnipeg attack in the Chalkboard portion–they saw the Penguins coming a mile away and were ready. Even though Winnipeg played in Boston yesterday, they were clearly the fresher team.

Kasperi Kapanen and Evgeni Malkin, who were quiet church mice, galloped in the third. In a blink, the Penguins went from forlorn hope to masters of their destiny.