Penguins seeking a full 60-minute game to break losing streak
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A losing streak can elicit a lot of reactions and emotions.
And none of them are good.
For Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, disdain might be his most prominent feeling over the three-game skid his team carried into Saturday’s road game against the Seattle Kraken.
“I don’t think anybody likes losing,” Crosby said to media in Vancouver on Friday after a 5-1 loss to the Canucks. “I guess it depends on how you classify that. I’d say nobody likes losing. We’re not happy with the results that we’ve had. We’ve got to be better.”
The streak — which includes a 6-3 road loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Monday and a 4-1 road loss to the Calgary Flames on Tuesday — has seen the Penguins be outscored 15-5.
And in all three contests, they gave up the first goal. If you include a 6-3 road win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 22, they yielded the first goal in four consecutive contests.
“I just don’t think we’re putting a 60-minute effort together,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “It’s hard to win in this league when you don’t.”
Even though they allowed the first goal to the Oilers, the Penguins still commanded a 3-1 lead in that game before the Oilers came back to earn the victory.
In other words, the Penguins’ malfunctions aren’t exclusive to the openings of periods.
“We had a pretty good start in Edmonton,” Crosby said. “Calgary, not so much. (Vancouver), not so much. We’ve just got to be more determined and understand that it’s something that we’ve got to focus on and find a way to be better.”
Being healthier would aid that pursuit. Fourth-line center Teddy Blueger has yet to play this season and is on long-term injured reserve because of an undisclosed injury. Meanwhile, the team’s top two left wingers, Jake Guentzel (previous three games) and Jason Zucker (two games), have been sidelined for parts of the team’s road trip.
But in Sullivan’s eyes, the Penguins still have enough able-bodied high-end players to still be a competitive entity.
“We’ve got an experienced group,” Sullivan said. “They’ve been through ups and downs in this league. They understand what it takes. We need everybody to take ownership for their own game.”
Few players in the Penguins’ realm tend to own up to their shortcomings during rough times more than Evgeni Malkin. In Friday’s loss, he took a hooking penalty late in the first period that led to a power-play opportunity that Canucks forward Bo Horvat converted into the eventual winning goal early in the second period.
“It’s hard to say what (is) the problem right now,” Malkin said. “We need (to) play harder, for sure. Every team is so good right now. It’s the NHL. … We just need to play right. Win faceoffs, don’t take penalties, win every shift.”
The Penguins won at least one shift on Friday. That triumph resulted in their lone goal, a power-play score by forward Rickard Rakell in the second period.
“We’ve had times in a game where we’ve played really good and created extended shifts and created scoring chances,” Rakell said. “But we’ve got to do it more often, for sure.
“We’ve just got to stop the bleeding. Figure it out.”
Figuring out the formula for piecing together a full 60-minute contest would go a long way toward finding another win.
“We’ve got to be better,” Crosby said. “We’ve had good periods, bad periods. But we haven’t put a full game together. We’ve got to find a way to do that.”