Capsized: Penguins Fall To Washington Again, 6-3

There's no sugarcoating it, boys and girls.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have a lot of work to do if they are going to win the Stanley Cup again this season.

After falling to the Washington Capitals for the 4th time this year -- giving the Caps' the first season sweep of Pittsbugh in the history of their franchise -- the Pens now have gone 0-10 on the year against the teams they are most likely going to have to get through in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

And, thanks to last night's defeat, their chances of having to go through BOTH the Caps and New Jersey Devils in the post-season, rather than just one of them, just went up.

Like just about every game against Washington this season, the Penguins were just a step behind the Capitals last night. They fell behind early and just when they got close enough that it looked like they'd have a chance, they let the Caps get up on them some more.

For the 8th straight contest, the Pens put themselves in an early hole by giving up the first goal when Pittsburgh blueliner Alex Goligoski stumbled defending a rush in the neutral zone, which allowed Caps' forward Alexander Semin to steam right by him into the Pens' zone near the far side, then did what everyone -- including Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury -- should have known he would do.

Go high glove side.

Which is exactly what he did, catching Fleury backing up towards the net and beating him on the short side for a 1-0 Caps' lead.

The score stayed that way through the end of one, but early in the 2nd period, Caps' RW Mike Knuble took a simple snap shot from the right circle that Fleury should have stopped easily, but somehow the puck eluded him for a 2-0 Washington lead.

Even though Sidney Crosby restored the Penguins' equilibrium by scoring his 48th on a power play about 5 minutes later, any momentum Pittsburgh gained from that was quickly wiped away when Caps' forward Tomas Fleischmann capitalized less than a minute later by taking a loose puck high in the slot and again beating Fleury high to restore the Caps' 2-goal lead.

The worst part about the play wasn't necessarily the way Fleury played it. He came out to challenge and was just beaten by a nice shot, but the play should have been an icing call. Unfortunately, Semin beat Pens' forward Max Talbot to the puck along the near boards and, after a collision with Talbot there, the puck just conveniently squirted towards the slot where Fleischmann happened to be. He made no mistake when he got it.

Still, either having seen enough of Fleury being not on the top of his game, or simply wanting to try and spark his team -- likely both -- Pens' coach Dan Bylsma then pulled Fleury in favor of backup Brent Johnson.

It looked like Bylsma's move would work when defenseman Jordan Leopold drilled one from the point that went off a Capitals' player and past netminder Semyon Varlamov to make the score 3-2, but Caps' forward Matt Bradley deftly deflected one past Johnson at the 18 minute mark to again put the Penguins down by 2.

Pittsburgh got a bad break less than a minute later when a Tyler Kennedy shot got past Varlamov, but the official lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle just a second before the puck squirted across the goal line.

It was more of the same in the third, when Leopold scored again for his first 2-goal game in 7 seasons (and his career high 10th of the year) when he just ripped a slapper from the high slot past Varlamov on the stick side less than a minute into the frame, but about 2 minutes later, Alexander Ovechkin struck right off a face-off on the power play to restore Washington's 2 goal lead.

On that play, Pens' center Jordan Staal took the draw against his counterpart in the white jersey, Niklas Backstrom. Neither really won the face-off, and with the other wingers on each side of the circle tying each other up, the puck just squired behind Backstrom.

Ovechkin -- lined up at the point position, but having moved up to the top of the circle for the draw -- swooped in and grabbed the biscuit, took a stride or two towards the slot, then beat Johnson easily to the far side with a wicked wrist shot.

The kick in the teeth came at the end of the game when Ovechkin scored again on an empty-net tally with .2 seconds left to tie Crosby for the NHL's goal scoring lead at 48, and make the score final at 6-3.

Crosby does have a game in hand on Ovechkin to try and capture the goal scoring title, but any chance he may have at the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer is pretty faint at this point.

Despite the 3 points he had last night to hit the century mark again, he's 7 points behind the league leader, Henrik Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks, AND 6 points behind Ovechkin.

A monster game in any of Pittsburgh's next 3 contests -- two against the New York Islanders and one against the Atlanta Thrashers -- could put him in the mix, but it doesn't look likely.

Individual honors aside, the Penguins are now staring hard at a much tougher playoff road thanks to their loss last night and the New Jersey Devils' 3-0 shutout victory over the Thrashers.

The Devils are now 2 points up on the Pens in the Atlantic Division with 3 games to play, and as everyone knows, they hold the tiebreaker over Pittsburgh if the teams finish with the same number of points and wins, thanks to crushing them, 6-0, in the season series.

Going strickly on wins and losses and not factoring the single point that gets awarded in the event of an overtime or shootout loss (which always complicates figuring these things out), the Penguins would have to either go 3-0 while the Devils go 1-2 in their last three games to win the Atlantic, or go 2-1 while the Devils lose all 3.

Either way, the Penguins need at least 3 more points than New Jersey in those contests to capture the division title.

Those scenarios aren't likely, so the Pens' are probably staring hard at the #4 seed and a first round matchup with the Ottawa Senators in the first round of the post-season.

I wrote on Monday that a scenario like that may not be bad for Pittsburgh after all, but it's worth noting that a 4th place finish makes it more likely that, if the Penguins defeat Ottawa, the Birds will see the Capitals in round 2 of the post-season -- just like last year -- rather than see them one round later.

Not looking ahead, the Penguins also have to be sure they lock down the #4 seed first, because Ottawa is 4 points behind them in the standings and could, in one scenario, catch them.

To do that, the Senators would have to win their last 2 games, and have Pittsburgh lose all 3 of their final contests. That would give both squads 97 points, and Ottawa the tiebreaker edge because of more wins.

If the Pens' pick up a single point in their final 3 games, they will at least sew-up home ice advantage against the Senators in the first round.

One last point about last night's game, and the Penguins' troubles this year against the Caps and Devils.

Yes, the Penguins were competitive in most of those games. And yes, the playoffs are a new season. But the Penguin players, I think, are wrong to discount their lack of success against both clubs as meaningless if they face each other in the post-season.

Everyone knows how poorly the Penguins have fared against those clubs, and everyone is talking about it. For example:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=524239

Now, it is certainly true that the slate starts clean in the playoffs, but the fact of the matter is that the Penguins simply haven't gotten it done on the ice this year against the better teams in the league -- and that includes the top dogs in the Western Conference. An argument could be made that Pittsburgh has achieved their record and solid point total against the weaker clubs in the league, but struggles against the better ones, and it would be hard to refute that.

I mean, until the Penguins prove they can beat those clubs --- and, this year to-date, they have not -- it's going to be a valid question to ask.

Pittsburgh may be just as good of a team, but they haven't played that way when it matters. Couple that with their inconsistency this year (and especially down the stretch) and no wonder the feeling isn't as good around town going into the post-season as it has been in prior years.

Remember, the Penguins got on a roll down the stretch each of the last three seasons. The first year was their playoff baptism, so bowing out in 5 games against Ottawa that year was mostly understandable. But their long post-season runs the last two years arguably had a lot to do with how they were playing going into the playoffs. You can make a good argument that there's a strong correlation there.

The Penguins won't have that correlation to make this year, so they will either prove or disprove that theory depending on how the post-season goes for them.

Right now, they simply have to face the frustrating reality of what it was like to get swept by the Caps (and Devils) this season, AND look in the mirror to step up their games.

That includes the forwards, the blueliners AND Fleury -- all of whom can and need to be better if the Penguins are going to make any post-season noise.

Time will tell.

More tomorrow.


NOTES: Pittsburgh played last night without a few key contributors in Chris Kunitz (who I mistakenly said yesterday had a lower-body injury -- he's apparently suffering a shoulder problem) and Evgeni Malkin, who unexpectedly missed last night's game after taking the pre-game skate with what was described as "illness". As expected, Mike Rupp took Kunitz' spot in the lineup and Max Talbot played center for Malkin. Talbot was mostly a non-factor again, and may be looking hard at being a scratch in the post-season just one year removed from being the hero in game 7 of the Cup Final.