Despite firing 18 shots in the opening frame on Thursday in Seattle, the Penguins went into the intermission trailing 1-0 after the Kraken scored on a fortuitous bounce.
“It’s not a good feeling to feel like you do a lot of good things, especially in the first there… to come out of that period down, that was tough. But we had a lot of game left. Couldn’t find a way to get that one in to get us started,” captain Sidney Crosby said.
Philipp Grubauer ended up with a 33-save shutout as Seattle defeated the Penguins 2-0 at Climate Pledge Arena.
"I thought for a lot of the night we were the better team - we just couldn't find a way to finish. It's hard to win when you don't score goals,” Head Coach Mike Sullivan said. “I don't think it was from a lack of opportunity. We had a lot of pucks at the net, we just didn't finish tonight.”
Tristan Jarry stopped 26 shots for Pittsburgh, putting together another strong performance. There wasn’t much he could do on the Kraken’s first goal after the puck changed direction and popped up.
“It’s tough when the puck goes up in the air like that,” he said. “Your trajectory of your body is looking down, and usually the way the puck’s traveling, it's usually down to up. It's tough to track the puck from the ceiling down. Just lost track of it for a split second and they were able to get it before we did.”
After a scoreless second period, the Penguins took three penalties in the final frame – and the Kraken converted the last one with just under five minutes to go in regulation.
Conversely, Pittsburgh wasn’t able to capitalize on any of their three opportunities on the man-advantage during the course of the night. The coaching staff moved Jeff Carter, who played in his 1,300th NHL game, onto the first unit over the boards as a net-front presence.
“We were trying to get someone at the net front to see if we can’t simplify it a little bit, and see if we'd shoot the puck and maybe create off of the rebound or off the spray if the opportunities presented themselves,” Sullivan said.
“I thought their intent was to shoot the puck tonight. I mean, obviously the power play’s not where we'd like it to be, where they're in instinctive mode and making the plays that are there. We're trying to simplify it. That was some of the thought process with some of the adjustments we made on it tonight.”
Both Jarry and Marcus Pettersson said that in general, both 5-on-5 and on the power play, the Penguins could have gotten to the net a little harder and created more traffic.
“We could have done a better job getting pucks through,” Pettersson said. “I think their D stepped in front of a lot of shots. It felt like we could find some different avenues from the blue line a little bit better. I don’t think we got in his grill enough, and we didn’t get enough pucks there.”
The Penguins play the third game of their four-game road trip out West on Saturday in Calgary, and will try to have a short memory after this one despite what it means standings-wise, with Pittsburgh fighting for its playoff life.
“We fought hard. We felt like we were desperate… but we need the points, so it’s for sure disappointing,” Pettersson said.
