What in the hell was that?!?!
Leading 4-2 going into the third period last night in their first game at The Bird House in more than a week, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a meltdown of significant proportions, allowing 5 goals in a 16-minute span and embarrassing themselves on their home ice in falling 7-4 to the Boston Bruins.
If Head Coach Dan Bylsma wants to put on a clinic for his players on how to NOT play defensively, all he has to do is cue up last night's game tape.
And it started early.
After winger Aaron Asham got his first goal as a Penguin just over a minute into the game to get the crowd rolling, defenseman Alex Goligoski foreshadowed what would be an abysmal night for him when he turned the puck over behind his own net, leading to a sequence which allowed 42-year old former Penguin Mark Recchi to tie the score at about the 8 minute-mark of the first.
After Bruins forward Brad Marchand scored following a neutral zone turnover by LW Chris Kunitz, rearguard Brooks Oprik tied it at 2 before the period ended, then the Penguins took control in the second on goals by Kunitz and Captain Sidney Crosby, both in the final 5 minutes of the frame.
You'd think that would give Pittsburgh strong momentum going into the final period, right?
"The talk in our dressing room going out for the third was managing the puck," Bylsma said after the game.
I can only assume they meant managing it for THEMSELVES, but if I'm right after stepping out on a limb on that one, they must have missed the mesage, because all they did when they actually got out there to play the final twenty minutes was manage it for the Bruins.
Boston forward Nathan Horton made it 4-3 about 4 minutes in, shooting a laser past screened Pens' netminder Brent Johnson after capitalizing on some lackadaisical play from the Penguins in their own zone.
Before the Penguin fans could stop booing Horton's goal, Bruins' rearguard Zdeno Chara tied it at 4 by finishing a 3-on-2 rush with a shot from the slot that went over Johnson's shoulder as he dropped to his knees a bit early.
8 minutes later, the bleeding started again, when Goligoski made a bad decision to try and pinch in and keep a puck in on the wall in the offensive zone -- especially since he failed -- and that led to a 2-on-1 which Bruins' goon Shawn Thornton finished by again seeing Johnson go down to soon and beating him over the shoulder to make it 5-4.
The onslaught continued a little more than 3 minutes later when Pittsburgh defenseman Zbynek Michalek got meekly checked off the puck by the aging Recchi while trying to retrieve it behind his own net, then watched helplessly as Recchi slid the puck to teammate Blake Wheeler in front, who quickly beat a stunned Johnson with a backhand.
Milan Lucic ended the madness with an empty net goal before the horn finally -- mercifully -- sounded.
The Penguins actually outshot Boston 46-33 in this game, if you believe that. But, as Crosby said afterwards, "We got into playing risky hockey. We made big mistakes."
Typical of a team below .500, really, but still difficult to watch.
Goligoski, as I mentioned, was awful in this game. Michalek has struggled mightily of late, too. Ben Lovejoy -- who got in the lineup at the expense of teammate Deryk Engelland, who played poorly in the Pens' last game in Phoenix and even was benched for a period of time -- was an overwhelmingly unimpressive -3 in the contest.
There's no doubt that the Penguins' defensive zone play and decision-making needs a lot of work. To see how they fared in those areas last night (READ: POORLY) erases a lot of the good things they had accomplished in the last two games against the Anaheim Ducks and Phoenix.
Only 7 other teams now have given up more goals than the local hockey club has this season so far.
If Pittsburgh doesn't straighten those areas out soon, they could be embarrassed again in their next game on Friday when a strong offensive team in the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the CONSOL Energy Center.
Another thing worth noting is that Johnson was below-average last night between the pipes as well.
In his last two starts, he's allowed 11 goals, with an intervening strong performance in relief of Marc-Andre Fleury against the Coyotes on Saturday.
Could the bloom be starting to come off Johnson's rose? Him going down to his knees as often -- and as early -- as he did last night was a clear sign he was fighting the puck.
Fleury night have his chance to start several games in a row sooner than many anticipated.
Either way, it's a gloomy Thursday in Penguin Nation after last night's sobering defeat.
More soon.
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