The Rollercoaster Continues

Just when it looks like the Penguins are going to start to build some momentum, they find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Monday night at The Bird House, the Penguins played a pretty strong hockey game against the arch-rival New York Rangers.

For about 58 minutes.

While trailing at the 57 minute mark thanks to a Rangers' goal by former Penguin Erik Christensen, Pittsburgh had peppered New York netminder Henrik Lundqvist all game, and were pressing for the tying goal, which they finally got when LW Chris Kunitz chipped in a rebound with 2 and 1/2 minutes left in the game.

Riding that momentum, Pens' LW Matt Cooke then whipped the CONSOL Energy Center crowd into a frenzy by beating Lundqvist short side about 35 seconds later for a sudden -- and shocking -- 2-1 advantage.

To top things off, Lundqvist was so upset about the Cooke goal, he smashed and broke his stick over the crossbar, then earned a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty by tossing the broken handle of it over towards one of the referrees near the penalty box.

So, with less than 2-minutes left and a stunning 2-1 lead, the Penguins were going on a power play.  Of course, the power play had miserably failed all night up to that point, going 0-for-5,  But fortunately, for them, they didn't have to score on this man-advantage.  All they had to do was run out the clock.  They'd win, and get a big emotional boost in the process.

"We had a chokehold on the game," Cooke said.

But the Penguins found a new way to fail.

Not once. 

Not twice.

Three times.

In one sequence.

First of all, for some inexplicable reason, head coach Dan Bylsma sent out his top power play unit.

MEMO TO THE COACH:  YOU DON'T NEED TO SCORE THERE!

Unfortunately, though Evgeni Malkin apparently tried to do just that.  He had the puck on the near boards and sent a careless pass towards the middle of the ice, where Ranger penalty killer Brandon Dubinsky easily took the puck and rushed up the ice.  He was joined by New York rearguard Marc Staal.

Not a good decision by Geno, for sure, but even then, the Penguins had all 5 guys back on the play.

2-on-5 doesn't seem like very good odds, does it?

Well, they are when two of the guys can't stop Dubinsky from making a pass to Staal while the other 3 lazily cover him.  Sure enough, Staal gets off a shot that Pens' goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury can't really see because of how many backcheckers are in the area.  Worse, since he's not expecting a real shot there, Fleury's back in his net.

The puck goes off his shoulder and in to unbelievably tie the score with 86 seconds left.

Then, in overtime, the Penguins' star off-season blue line additions decided to go swimming.

First, defenseman Zbynek Michalek blew a tire and went down at center ice, allowing Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan to go in 2-on-1 against partner Paul Martin.

Dubinsky was carrying the puck down the near side and instead of shading towards Callahan -- as you're supposed to do when defending that rush -- Martin drifted towards Dubinsky.

Then, he left his feet to try and block a pass from coming across.

That's not always a bad play, but if you do it, your timing and positioning have to be right.

Martin's was not.

While Dubinsky showed great patience in curl-dragging the puck, Martin slid himself and his desperately-reaching stick both right out of the play past Dubinsky, then watched him feed the puck to Callahan at Fleury's left for effectively what amounted to a 2-on-0 tap-in game-winner.

And with that, the Penguins got a point, a whole lot of heartache, and blunted momentum following 2-straight wins.

The optimist in me sees that the Penguins are playing better hockey of late.  They are generating a lot of shots, and getting more to of their game that way. 

But they are still making questionable decisions out there.  And while I can't blame Fleury for Staal's tying goal because him even being in that position was more a by-product of those bad decisions his teammates were making, it sure would have been nice to see him step up and just get his body in the way. 

In the end, Pittsburgh gave the game away.

And the challenge the Penguins now face tonight back at CONSOL against a very good Vancouver Canucks team is to show how they can bounce back.

It won't be easy against the reigning Hart and Art Ross trophy winner Henrik Sedin, brother Daniel, Roberto Luongo and company, that's for sure, but I'm anxious to see what kind of mettle they put on display.

Recap tomorrow.