Penguins Stumble Into Olympic Break With 4 Losses In 5 Games After 4-3 Shootout Defeat To Nashville

Scripts have flipped in the world of the Eastern Conference recently.

Good is bad, and bad is good.

SEE: Captials, Washington --- after winning 14 straight, they've lost their last 3.

SEE: Devils, New Jersey --- a model of consistency most of the season, they've lost 12 of their last 17.

SEE: Hurricanes, Carolina --- one of the worst teams in the league all season is 9-0-2 in their last 11.

SEE: Penguins, Pittsburgh --- as they looked to be getting their game on track in late January (relatively spekaing, anyway), they're now losers of 4 of 5 heading into the Olympic break after suffering their first shootout defeat of the season yesterday, at home, to the Nashville Predators, 4-3.

The Jeckyll-and-Hyde Penguins can't seem to settle into any consistently lately --- unless you count that they are consistently being inconsistent.

Yesterday, they couldn't get out of the way of their own mistakes most of the game.

After Sidney Crosby scored his 42nd goal of the season on a power play in the first period -- tying Capitals' forward Alexander Ovechkin for the league lead in that category -- they gave it back to Nashville early in the second period on a near carbon copy power play goal by Predators' forward Martin Erat after Evegni Malkin took a stupid penalty against Preds' d-man Dan Hamhuis as the first period ended.

A few minutes later, Pittsburgh recaptured momentum on a Matt Cooke crease-crashing goal, but Pens' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury permitted a bad angle tally by Nashville forward Jordan Tootoo to tie the score just 12 seconds later.

The Penguins had to think things were going to break in their favor after defenseman Brooks Orpik scored his first goal in 114 games by ripping a point shot that hit Predators' goaltender Dan Ellis before caroming behind him for a 3-2 Pens' lead about 5 minutes into the third period.

But that was before Nashville defenseman Shea Weber lasered a shot past Fleury from the center point with less than 4 minutes to go to tie the game, 3-3.

In a sense, the Penguins were fortunate the score remained tied after regulation, because Malkin took another dumb penalty with just about 2 minutes left in the 3rd, giving Nashville a power play to end the game.

True to form, though, the Pens' strong PK unit stepped up again, and didn't allow the Predators a shot on that man-advantage.

They killed off 6 of 7 Nashville power plays on the night.

Then, in OT, Pittsburgh had a chance to win it on a 4-on-3 power play of their own, and despite owning the Predators during that stretch, they weren't able to dent Ellis for the game-winner.

And so, going into the shootout, the Pens had to fell confident.

They were undefeated in the shootout this season at that point, going 7-0 in the process, thanks largely to Fleury having stopped 14 of 15 shootout attempts against him, along with 6 shootout markers by teammate Sidney Crosby.

But after the Penguins' inability to put the Predators away in the first 65 minutes, you can guess what happened.

Defenseman Kris Letang and Crosby were stopped by Ellis, while Nashville forwards Cal O'Reilly and Martin Erat both beat Fleury easily to give the Preds' a 4-3 victory.

The point Pittsburgh earned kept them in 4th place in the Eastern Conference at the break, but also still kept them 1 point behind the Devils --- and that's a hump they just can't seem to get over right now.

More importantly, as Pens' stars Fleury, Orpik, Malkin, Crosby and Sergei Gonchar head off to the Olympics to play for their respective nations over the last two weeks, their teammates and HC Dan Blymsa's coaching staff will try to rest a little and come up with an elixir during the layoff for their overall inconsistency this season.

The Pens' have been an almost unstoppable force in each of the last 3 springs. Will they find a way to finally get into their groove this season in the final 20 games of the season? They better, or it's going to inspire a lot of question marks heading into the post-season. I mean, while it's certainly understandable that a team who has played so many important, high-stakes games over the last few seasons might find it hard to get up for every contest in January and February, let's hope Pittsburgh is not a team that believes they can turn it on and off when they need to. They're good, but that is extremely difficult to do against the caliber of competition they're going to have to go through in the East if they want to secure a third straight berth in the Stanley Cup Final this season.

So, with the first Olympic hiatus to deal with during this blog's history, there are several things I'll be reporting on during the break.

At some point, I'm going to do a team analysis at the three-quarter pole, just as I have at or around the 20 and 40-game marks earlier this season. I'll take a look at where the Penguins have been and, more importantly, what they need to do down the stretch.

This review will be quite timely, given that the trade deadline comes up in mere days after the Olympic break is over. Will Pens' GM Ray Shero make a move or not? Will guys like Ruslan Fedotenko, Jay McKee and/or various prospects be on the way out the door in favor of a scoring winger and/or defensive defenseman?? I'll take a deeper look at some of what I'm hearing in that regard surrounding the team.

Finally, I'll be tracking the progress of the Penguin players and their respective teams at the Olympics. Sidney Crosby's Team Canada kicks things off this Tuesday agianst Norway, while the U.S. team opens up against Switzerland the same day.

This year's games should be an outstanding tourament overall, so if you're a hockey fan, I encourage you to tune in -- especially once the preliminary round is over at the end of this week. The hockey is going to be fantastic.

More soon.