Dallas Dominates First Period of Humbling Loss for Penguins

The Dallas Stars are a talented group who advanced to the Western Conference Final last season, which makes them a tough opponent. They also came to PPG Paints Arena on Monday motivated to get back on track after enduring some early struggles.

But that doesn’t justify how the first period went down for Pittsburgh, as the Penguins entered the intermission down 6-0. “I think it’s inexcusable, in front of our own crowd, too,” Marcus Pettersson said. They couldn’t recover after digging such a deep hole, with the final score standing as 7-1 after Anthony Beauvillier got on the board in the third period.

“We got behind, and started chasing it. To do that against a dangerous team, it can get ugly, and that's what happened,” Sidney Crosby said. “Instead of just realizing we had a lot of game left, we started to force it a bit and opened up. They capitalized.”

Joel Blomqvist earned the start tonight, even after Tristan Jarry rejoined the team on Sunday following his conditioning stint in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League, meaning the Penguins are carrying three goalies. The 22-year-old rookie had been playing extremely well, and was deserving of the opportunity.

Unfortunately, Blomqvist wasn’t able to build on the momentum from Friday’s win in Washington, giving up three goals in the first 10-plus minutes. He would’ve liked to have the first two back. Alex Nedeljkovic, who started the night as his backup, took some time to find his game after entering the contest in relief. The Stars doubled their lead before the first period ended.

“All you can do is take it one shot at a time and try to focus on the next shot, next puck. It’s tough, it’s hard,” Nedeljkovic said. “Obviously, it can get away from you quick and things kind of snowball from there. It’s unfortunate we had one of those nights tonight.”

That being said, the Penguins surrendered a number of Grade-A chances. Before the game, head coach Mike Sullivan said Dallas’ ability to create offense off the rush is “really good… we're going to have to make sure we're locked in with our transition defense.” But the Penguins still had issues cutting down on those looks.

“We knew they were a dangerous rush team and we didn't cater to that,” Ryan Graves said. “We're trying to play a structure, and sometimes, we just get away from it. It's been a work in progress and when we are above pucks and we're responsible with our decisions and make plays in the right areas, we're a good team. We're hard to play against…. but as we get away from that, that brings us trouble."

After the Penguins returned to the locker room, Crosby said there’s not much to say when the scoreboard looks like that.

“You just got to play through it. You can't quit. You can't give up,” the captain said. “You know, we put ourselves in that position. It’s just a tough spot to put yourselves in. We’ve got to keep playing and see what happens. Besides that, you can't change the period. It happened, and you got to find ways to play through it.”

Nedeljkovic settled in during the second period, coming up with several excellent stops. Beauvillier found that goal on a setup from Valtteri Puustinen, and their line with Blake Lizotte had some good moments. Nedeljkovic said they have to look at it as though the remaining 40 minutes were 1-1.

“Obviously, be pissed about it, be frustrated, be whatever you want to be. Tomorrow is a new day,” Nedeljkovic said. “You wake up, move on from it. We’ll watch video. It isn’t going to be fun for anybody. A loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter if you lose 1-0 or 10-1. It sucks, obviously. It’s very humbling. It’s a very crappy feeling but at the end of the day, it’s just one loss.”

Nedeljkovic and his teammates talked about the team’s inconsistency this season, which has resulted in a 6-9-2 record. It’s been up and down, and they’re still trying to figure out how to stay more even-keeled and better manage the highs and lows.

“I don't think this game has been a sign of how we’ve played lately. So, it's frustrating,” said Crosby, who felt like the Penguins had some good periods on their 1-2 divisional road trip particularly the final frame of that victory against the Capitals.

“Obviously, when you look at wins and losses, we’re not where we want to be. But I think leading up to this, we were doing a lot of good things. I think what we showed on that trip and previous to that was just a team that works, that's in the other team’s face, that's tough to play against when we're all playing together and keeping it simple. We didn't do that tonight.”