Musings: Penguins Give Up Too Much to Toronto

After beating Columbus on Friday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins were looking to build off their third-period comeback victory on Saturday versus Toronto. On the flip side, the Maple Leafs came into the game seeking a response after losing to Washington the night before.

Unfortunately for the Penguins, they were unable to stop Toronto's offensive firepower, losing 7-2.

“I thought that the quality of chances we gave up was just too good,” Captain Sidney Crosby said. “I thought we had the puck for a good chunk of it, but when we did have breakdowns, there were big ones and quality chances. We’ve got to tighten up.”

The game started with high tempo on both ends of the ice when Leafs defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson opened the scoring, followed by a beautiful goal from rookie Ben Kindel, who batted the puck out of mid-air and into the net for his sixth goal of the season.

Toronto reclaimed its lead just under three minutes after Kindel’s power-play goal. They followed that up by scoring twice in the first five minutes of the second to go up 4-1. Tristan Jarry, who had won two straight after missing seven games with a lower-body injury, replaced Arturs Silovs between the pipes for Pittsburgh.

“The goalie thing, most of the time, it’s just to kind of take a breather, take a break and try to spark the team,” Kris Letang said. “It’s not the performance a lot of times. It’s just a way to maybe calm things down, change the momentum, spark something.”

While Crosby’s third-period goal surpassed Dave Andreychuk for the 15^th-most goals in NHL history and cut the deficit to 5-2, Toronto continued to apply pressure with two more goals in the final frame.

“They’re opportunistic. I think that’s something that is known about their team is that they don’t need much,” Crosby said. “They have some game breakers. We gave them too much in the third period when we were in Toronto, and we gave them too much here tonight. You feel like you're generating chances, you have the puck, and then we have a breakdown and it's in the back of the net. So, we're going to make mistakes, but we just can't make ones that are that quality.”

The Penguins will look to regroup and prepare for their matchup in Philadelphia on Monday night.

“Every team is going to have guys who are dangerous and you know they're going to be opportunistic. So, you can't give them ones of that quality and expect to win games. So, I think just focus on our own end and let everything else kind of take care of itself.”

More from Head Coach Dan Muse...

How do you look at a game like this? You guys did have more chances and all that, but the final score is what it is.

I thought we had the puck a lot. Within the chances, I think we have to create more quality on some of those. There was opportunities there, just some of our execution, making plays into the right area, I didn’t think our execution was there on a number of them. And then the chances we’re giving up there, they're just too loud. They're too big. And so, I think it's both sides of it. You look at a game like that, I think the chances are going to end up probably being in our favor. But at the end of the day, it's about the score, and I think our execution there can be better. I think we can still create more quality. I thought there was times we had the puck in the offensive zone for good stretches, but then you look back on it, like, what are we creating? We need to create more. And on the flip side of it, the ones we gave up were just too loud.

This is the second consecutive game you’ve pulled Arturs early. What's fair in critiquing him? Is there something specifically not working for him right now, or do you just lump up his performance with the team’s performances in these two games?

Again, I think some of the chances we’re giving up, though – like, you can prevent those. You don't need to put him in those spots. Yes, I understand the last two games there, I've made that decision to make a change. But he's been really good this year, and so, you got to go back to that. We're going to keep working with him, and we also have to be better in front of him. A lot of those are preventable. There's going to be breakdowns in the game. But a lot of what you saw there today, a lot of that is preventable. We can be tighter. We can make it harder. It was too easy for them on a couple of those looks that they had early on.

You finished November with more losses than wins after a really strong October. In October, you were much healthier, but did you see any reason or characteristic why the second month wasn't as strong as the first month?

I think it's consistency. You go through this month, some of those losses... I think we've been pretty honest with ourselves as a group. I think we'll look at it and say, okay, there was some there, especially early in the month, where we got to get the points, but the process was good. And then there was others that it wasn't good at all. There's been some games this month, too, that we came out with a point or two where I didn't feel like it was there. But the consistency is the big part. And I've said it before, it’s so tight right now, every point matters. And so, at the end, we got to make sure that we're working to get those points. But in order to do that, we have to play better defensively than we did tonight, and we have to build to where our game is sustainable. It's a sustainable game, night in, night out, we know what we're going to be bringing within those things that we can control. So, we're in this schedule right now, though, where the games are coming here. And so, we’ll look at it, we'll meet, we'll work to get better, and it's going to be a quick turnaround here before Philly.