Penguins/Jets Recap: Pittsburgh no match for Winnipeg, fall for fifth time in last six games

The Penguins went down pretty quietly against the NHL’s best team on Friday night

Pregame

Kris Letang is able to rejoin the lineup after illness kept him out for the last three games. Otherwise, the Penguins are lined up similar to how they’ve been recently.

First period

Winnipeg scores only 1:22 into the game. The puck takes an odd bounce off Evgeni Malkin’s stick when he tries to corral a pass and jumps to the middle of the ice. Malkin nearly recovers it, but can’t and in a big ooof moment it ends up handing right over to Nino Niederreiter on a platter. A quick deke to the backhand gives Niederreiter an easy finish past the leg of Tristan Jarry and the Jets are on the board with their first shot of the night. Lovely.

The early goal zaps the Pens before they can get started, they don’t get a shot on goal for over seven minutes. Jarry rebounds by making two very nice saves on quality scoring looks for Winnipeg.

Pittsburgh gets a power play, Malkin gets one good look from in close but Connor Hellebuyck reads it all the way.

Late in the period, Jesse Puljujarvi rotates back to the point to cover for defense (good!) but has to hang all over a Jet to stop him from getting by (not great!) which sends the elite Winnipeg power play to work for the first time tonight. The Pens kill it off.

Horn sounds to end action. Shots are 13-8 Winnipeg, who as expected are the sharper and better of the two teams. Score is 1-0 for the visitors, thanks to one grisly mistake that ends up in the back of the net.

Second period

Pittsburgh changes lines up, Bryan Rust replaces Anthony Beauvillier on the top line with Sidney Crosby. That lines sees Winnipeg score their second goal of the night on a rush. Rust leaves his feet and accomplishes nothing, Pettersson ends up passive in space, Karlsson is not even in the picture until it’s too late. Not pretty or much help for Jarry when he leaves a rebound it’s enough for Vladislav Namestnikov to charge in and clean up the mess. 2-0 Jets.

What little the Pens get going is snuffed out easily by Hellebuyck. Crosby intercepts a breakout pass and feeds Rakell on a 2-on-1. Rakell shoots hard and low to the glove side but Hellebuyck sees it all the way and makes the stop look easy, there is no rebound. It’s comes a little over halfway through the period and is only Pittsburgh’s 11th shot on goal.

Late in the second Malkin’s poor night continues, he swoops in and kicks out an opponent’s leg. He takes a seat and the Jets strike very quickly. Kyle Conner passes to the bumper spot for Gabe Vilardi to lift a rolling puck over Jarry’s glove and extend the lead to 3-0.

Period is over. Pens have negative juice, Winnipeg in firm control to a larger degree than the 3-0 score might suggest.

Third period

Early on, Conner stops skating to the puck and instead decides to drops a shoulder on Crosby for a reverse hit. The captain is NOT having that. He cross-checks Conner a few times to let him know he didn’t let that pass and the two come together. Gloves are dropped and a few fists are exchanged before the two skill players hit the ice pretty quickly.

Crosby gets the extra two minutes for cross-check, which he did. No interference called on Conner which made Crosby mad enough to get in his first fight since 2019.

The Jets take a penalty and with Crosby still in the box Michael Bunting gets a look on the top power play and ends up scoring a goal off a nice pass by Rust. 3-1.

Noel Acciari gets crunched near his net and Pittsburgh gets a late power play to get even closer. They don’t.

The Pens pull the goalie with two minutes to go. Conner completes the Gordie Howe hat trick with an empty net goal. 4-1.

Some thoughts

• First goal was weird, more standard defensive Pittsburgh malaise. Pettersson had to wrap the puck around the net, it was going a little hard for Erik Karlsson to catch so he allowed Malkin to take over. Malkin had to put it on his backhand from the angle and speed he was carrying coming back against the grain and it popped away from him. Whoops. Strange stuff, unfortunate but lapses and mental/physical mistakes continue at the exact wrong times and places.
• Liked Jarry’s response though. Kyle Connor is a great sniper and Jarry stopped him on a big chance soon after the early goal. Really, it was worse on Conner for shooting the puck into Jarry’s pad, missing the 2.5 feet of open net above it, but hey, gotta be in position to make a save and Jarry did. There was no minimizing the clean breakaway save that came next with an outstretched his leg to not be beaten like that again. This game could have gotten into beatdown territory really quickly if Jarry was in his October form, but at least now he’s playing the part of a viable NHL goalie again.
• It’s not Jarry’s fault Malkin turned the puck over so egregiously on what would be Winnipeg’s first shot of the night, but now Jarry has somehow allowed a goal on the first shot he has faced in a shocking four out of six games he’s played this season. That’s just not winning hockey at the NHL level (and as seen tonight, it’s not all on the goaltender either).
• This isn’t meant to be anti-Jarry as much as pro-Hellebuyck, but the difference in seeing the two goalies was startling. Yes, Hellebuyck had very little work tonight. Yes, Jarry was always bound to lose since his team was playing so poorly. But simple things, playing the puck behind the net, the best goalie in the league doesn’t bumble it. Rebound control, one had it in spades, the other was having pucks hit him and go every which way (and, occasionally, to opponents to score on).
• When asked how he felt he was playing a few weeks ago, Erik Karlsson responded “great”, seemingly without any sarcasm or fibbing. He’s only fooling himself if he still believes that to be the case. His effort on the second goal against was pathetic, WIN had a 4v2 rush, Karlsson stopped skating at the blueline, well behind the play. And that’s after pinching up and waving at the puck when it went by him in the other end. Last year his offense was covering up these mistakes, this year it’s a glaring problem when he acts like he doesn’t want to play very hard.
• Bright spots are hard to find, but Owen Pickering doesn’t look like a 20-year old who was playing in his third NHL game. Agree with Danny Shirey’s take that Pickering is already Pittsburgh’s best net front defender. He might be the steadiest too. That does say more about everyone else than him, but he’s been good.
• Sidney Crosby now has one goal in his last eight games. No multi-point games since November 2nd. It’s straight up not a good time when the mixing and matching to find him a somewhat viable pair of wingers is finding more misses than hits these days. The quest for 600 waits again, but tomorrow is a new day (yes it is).
• A lot gets made when Crosby mixes it up, but there was nothing wrong with that. Conner won the Lady Byng last year and had zero career fights before tonight. If Sid gets pissed off at that guy, it’s totally fine for him to stand up to a guy that like over a minor squabble that could have easily been let go of. Obviously the frustration for Crosby is boiling over, and who can blame him. The team stinks and they’re listless more often than not.

Maybe the Pens were saving their energy for the game tomorrow night against Utah? Let’s hope so.