Empty Thoughts: Rangers 3, Penguins 1

Observations from the Penguins’ 3-1 loss to the Rangers:

First things first, no one in a Penguins jersey was injured. There haven’t been many times after games this season that could be said.

The combination of the Penguins’ chaos on the blue line and the six power-play chances they were afforded on Monday led to John Marino ending up having a career game.

Logging 30:30 of ice time on 29 shifts — keep in mind this was a regulation game — Marino established a career-high for ice time in this contest.

Marino’s ice time deconstructed:

Marino’s combined special teams ice time (11:08) alone was more than the total ice time enjoyed by six of his teammates:

His considerable effort — at least the quantifiable volume of it — was even more remarkable when you weigh it against the context of the team’s history.

Marino’s ice time was the ninth-highest regular season total on record in the history of the franchise for regulation games:

Two notes about that statistic:

• First, the NHL did not maintain time on ice figures until the 1997-98 season. So if Paul Coffey or Randy Carlyle or Ron Stackhouse or Duane Rupp ever had a half hour of ice time, it is not on the books.

• Second, defensemen Darius Kasparaitis (31:46) and Frederick Olausson (31:31) are credited with the second- and third-highest totals in franchise history for the parameters listed above. But their totals are omitted from the above list because the documentation of the game they registered those figures in, a 4-3 road win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 3, 1997, is highly dubious.

As it was the first home game in Hurricanes history, it’s probably a safe assumption that the stat crew at the Greensboro Coliseum was inexperienced, particularly with a very new statistic as time on ice was in October of 1997.

Regardless, Marino played a TON on Monday.

“He’s been given a huge responsibility back there out of necessity based on the amount of injuries that we have on the blue line,” coach Mike Sullivan said via video conference. “We’re asking him to do an awful lot and play in a lot of situations that maybe he wouldn’t be accustomed to playing if we’ve got a healthy complement of defensemen. But whatever we give him, he embraces it. He’s a competitive kid. He’s trying to help us win. He’s done an admirable job back there.”

What happened

The Penguins took the game’s first lead 9:05 into regulation. Taking a pass at the left point, Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel snapped off a wrister that went wide of the cage on the near side. Goaltender Igor Shesterkin misjudged the puck and made an ill-advised attempt to play it with his blocker but missed and slid out of the crease. The puck took a fortuitous bounce off the end boards to the right of the cage. With Shesterkin out of position, Penguins forward Jason Zucker beat Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller to the puck and tucked in a forehand shot for his third goal of the season. Assists went to Ruhwedel and forward Evgeni Malkin.

The game was tied late in the second period at the 17:42 mark. On a delayed penalty against the Penguins, Rangers forward Artemi Panarin teed up a one-timer from above the Penguins’ right circle but partially fanned on the shot. The puck bounced toward the net and was settled to the left of the crease by Rangers forward Kevin Rooney who was able to tuck a shot past scrambling Penguins goaltender Casey DeSmith for his second goal of the season. Panarin and defenseman Ryan Lindgren collected assists.

New York took its first lead of the game at 11:10 of the third period with a power-play goal. Taking a pass at the Penguins’ left point, Rangers defenseman Adam Fox sauntered to the center point and lifted a wrister toward the cage. Rangers forward Chris Kreider faced minimal resistance above the crease and re-directed the puck over DeSmith’s glove hand for his fourth goal. Fox and Panarin had assists.

The scoring was capped off at the last second, literally, when Panarin collected his fifth goal with an empty netter at 19:59 of the third period. Ryan Strome netted the lone assist.

Statistically speaking

• The Penguins led in shots, 26-24.

• Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich led the game with six shots.

• Defenseman P.O Joseph led the Penguins with four shots.

• Joseph was second on the Penguins with 26:14 of ice time on 32 shifts.

• Defenseman Jacob Trouba led the Rangers with 26:08 of ice time on 29 shifts.

• The Penguins controlled faceoffs, 34-14 (71%).

• Penguins forward Sidney Crosby was 16 for 23 (70%).

• Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad was 8 for 21 (38%).

• Fox led the game with five blocked shots.

• Defenseman Cody Ceci led the Penguins with three blocked shots.

Randomly speaking

• The Penguins’ woes on the power play continued as they were 0 for 6. They haven’t scored a power-play goal in their past five games and are 0 for 19 over that span.

There’s been a lot of talk of keeping things simple and just getting shots on net to get the power play on track by the Penguins’ players and coaches over the past week. And sure enough, they stuck to those tenets early in this contest.

The Penguins had four shots on net with the 3:11 of power-play time they had during the first period. But they could only muster three more shots during the additional 8:49 of time they had with the man advantage over the final two periods.

• Through two periods, the Penguins were probably the better team, at least when it came to even-strength play. In the third period, they were really on their heels. It only felt like a matter of time before the Rangers would take a lead.

• Even if he suffered his first loss, DeSmith might have had his best game of the season. His rebound control in his game was far better than what he offered in Saturday’s 5-4 overtime road win against the Rangers.

• Miller had a pretty vital defensive play shortly after the Rangers took a lead. At 11:51 of the third period, Joseph had a mostly open net to shoot at but Miller came through with a big block on Joseph’s wrister to preserve the one-goal lead.

• Kapanen recorded the Penguins’ first fighting major of the season at 20:00 of the first period when he got into a tussle with Rangers forward Brett Howden.

• There was an absolute train wreck of a collision at 17:15 of the first period between Penguins forward Brandon Tanev and Brendan Smith. Tanev burst up the right wing and into the offensive zone like a comet. When he tried to cut to the high slot, Smith tried to line him up and … Ooof. Smith did not win when they met. It appeared they might have hit helmet on helmet. Smith laid on the ice for several moments and eventually left the ice under his own power and retreated to the dressing room. He did not return. There was no update on his status following the game.

Tanev did not miss a shift.

• With Penguins defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang each sidelined, forward Bryan Rust served as an alternate captain.

• At 1:02 of the second period, Crosby tried to pull off a “lacrosse goal.” His attempt — with his backhand — hit off the side of the net.

Almost a year ago to the day, Crosby said he had no issue trying that move.

• Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel took two minor penalties. He now leads the team in penalty minutes with 12.

• The Penguins wore their alternate white jerseys. Dubbed “Reverse Retro” by some marketing whiz at Adidas, they really should be called the Hockey Related Revenue jerseys since the only purpose of them are to help offset the brutal financial losses the NHL is suffering this season with few fans in buildings.

Either way, the Penguins jerseys, from the perspective of this author, are unremarkable. They’re not horrible necessarily, but they simply look like a lazy effort to reverse the black and yellow jersey they wore in the early 1990s with “PITTSBURGH” spelled diagonally across the chest.

Have you ever seen a deleted scenes from a CGI-heavy movie? The special effects are never rendered fully because there’s no point in finishing them since they won’t make the finished product.

That’s what the Penguins’ jerseys on Monday felt like. It was almost as if Adidas designed 62% of the jersey and just forgot the final 38%.

Also, any team that has used that diagonal design across the chest is just copying the Rangers’ iconic look.

• With the East Coast a mess due to the winter weather and the Penguins’ next two home games, each against the Devils, postponed indefinitely due to the Devils having some serious covid-19 issues, the Penguins stayed an extra day in New York and will practice in Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

• Between the injuries, the general manager resigning, Weber’s crazy journey to join the team, the weather and the Devils’ problems, the Penguins had themselves quite a week.

• The Rangers showed a lot of moxie for a somewhat tumultuous 48 hours. With defenseman Tony DeAngelo’s antics virtually ending his Rangers career and promising forward Kaapo Kakko being withheld for covid-19 concerns, the Rangers limped into this game at less than full speed. They stuck with it and grinded out a tough win.

Historically speaking

• DeSmith (16 losses) surpassed Steve Guenette and Garth Snow (15 each) for 29th place on the franchise’s career goaltending loss list.

• Strome appeared in his 500th career game.

• Panarin appeared in his 400th career game.

• Defenseman Anthony Bitetto made his Rangers debut.

Publicly speaking

• Sullivan was asked why the power play stinks:

“I’m not sure I have a good answer for you. We’ve talked about just simplifying the game, trying to shoot the puck more and creating our offense off of that shot. It looks like we’re looking for a better play that’s not there. We’ve got to do a better job of just putting pucks at the net and creating our offense that way. My experience has been any time you struggle offensively, that shooting the puck and just simplifying is part of the solution. We’ve got to get back to that.”

• Sullivan was asked if his team is getting a sufficient net-front presence on the power play:

“We’ve got guys that are willing to go there. If we don’t put the puck there, guys aren’t going to go there. It’s a little bit of both. If we were inclined to shoot the puck a little bit more, I think players would be more inclined to go there and they’d create something off of that. These guys that are on (the power play), they’re trying to make it work, obviously. I just think we’re in a little bit of a mindset where we’re a little bit too robotic and predictable. We’ve got just to free up our minds a little bit. The best way to do that, in my experience, is to shoot the puck and then create opportunity off of that. We’ll go to work on it this week. We’ll try to improve and get better.”

• Zucker, who primarily skates on the second power-play unit, tried to diagnose his team’s issues with the man advantage:

“It’s simple to say from the outside. For me, staring at the first unit from the bench, it’s easy to say we need to shoot the puck more. But teams make changes and they try to get us off our game and make us make adjustments as well. We’re trying to do that. It’s definitely a work in progress. We’re not happy with it. We’re not happy with our special teams. We’ve got to keep fixing it. But I believe in the guys in this room that we’re going to work on it. We’re going to work hard on it and hold each other accountable from guy to guy, from coaches to players and players to coaches. We’ve got to make sure that we all get better as a cohesive unit. The simple answer is to shoot the puck. But we’ve got to make sure we’re making adjustments and finding ways to get those good shots on net.”

• Marino on his ice time:

“You don’t really think about it when you’re playing. You don’t really think about how many minutes you’re playing. You just kind of go out there when you’re told. You just take it one shift at a time, really.”

• Sullivan was happy with his team at even strength:

“Five on five, we had a pretty strong game. We had a good start. It’s something that we’ve been talking about for a while. I thought our first period was really strong. We had good energy. There was a lot of special teams in the game. That doesn’t help. It doesn’t give your bench an opportunity to get any sort of flow. It just seemed like every few minutes, there was another penalty called and now, you’re either on the power play or the penalty kill. It takes certain guys out of the flow. It was a difficult game, from a five-on-five standpoint, to get any sort of flow. But I thought five-on-five, we had good energy. We were playing hard. Our decision making with the puck through the neutral zone was pretty good. We were accomplishing what we set out to accomplish.”

• DeSmith on his team having a much better overall defensive game:

“We simplified. Not many catastrophic breakdowns. We protected the slot really well … for the most part, tying up sticks, keeping it to the outside. If we can keep doing that, we’ll limit the goals against.”

• Zucker on the next two games being postponed:

“It’s something that we had to expect coming into the season. We obviously never want to miss games but we had to expect it. We’re putting our trust in the league and the (NHL’s medical staffers) making sure that they’re going to make the right decisions. I feel that they are. They’re doing a great job so far. We have to respect their decision and just be ready when the puck drops, whenever they tell us we’re going to play next. For us, we’re going to take care of what we can on our end, make sure we keep the (positives tests) out of our locker room as much as we can. We’re going to welcome this practice time these few days to get ready for our next games.”

• DeSmith on the next two games being postponed:

“We just found out today so it will change the next couple of days. But coming into this season, we knew this was going to be a possibility, that we’d have to deal with this at some point, whether it was our team or a different team. So just take the next couple of days to rest up, get some really good practices in, improve the special teams, stuff like that. Just use the time for something positive.”

Visually speaking

• Game summary.

• Event summary.

• Highlights:

Follow the Penguins all season long.

Categories: Penguins/NHL | Sports