John Steigerwald: Not time for Penguins fans to panic; this series could go the distance

Now what?

The Penguins are down 1-0 in a best-of-five series. Is it time to panic? Not really. A good time to panic might be if/when the Canadiens score first in Game 2.

All the solutions are out there: Get Patric Hornqvist in front of the net, and sit Patrick Marleau and play somebody, anybody younger and faster. Those seem to be the most popular suggestions. And there is always the “switch the goalie” crowd.

On a team with as much offensive power as the Penguins, a goalie who gives up two goals in regulation shouldn’t have to be bothered with overtime.

Matt Murray played well enough to keep his job.

There was talk before the series started that Canadiens goalie Carey Price didn’t have it anymore. That might have had something to do with the age and quality of players in front of him. He showed Saturday night he can still steal a game.

He also showed that, diminished or not, he’s still the best goaltender in this series, and that’s not good news for a team that’s already down a game.

The Penguins looked like a team that was on its way to a lopsided sweep in the first 10 minutes when they outshot the Canadiens, 14-3.

The Canadiens made it 1-0 on their third shot. That took the crowd out of the game.

Sorry.

But it did let the Canadiens know it probably wasn’t going to get any worse in Game 1. When it turned into something that looked more like a playoff game in the second and third periods, you could say the Canadiens outplayed the Penguins.

In Western Pennsylvania, hockey fans are focusing on the Penguins’ power play going 1 for 7, including getting stopped on a two-man advantage for 1 minute, 32 seconds.

And that was with Montreal’s best penalty-killing forward, Phil Danault, in the box.

In French Canada, they’re probably giving a lot of credit to the Canadiens penalty kill.

When you don’t score on a 1:32 two-man advantage, you usually lose.

The two guys who scored the goals that gave the Canadiens the 2-0 lead, Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, are 20 years old.

That’s not supposed to happen to an older, more experienced, more talented team like the Penguins.

The Penguins did everything right in the first 10 or 11 minutes of the game except for that putting the puck in the net part.

They ended up with 41 shots, and they put plenty of pressure on Price. Sidney Crosby (five) and Evgeni Malkin (eight) combined for 13 shots on goal, but they only produced one score.

The only way the Canadiens are going to get away with allowing those two to take that many shots is if Price can repeat his performance from Saturday night.

And Price didn’t stand on his head. He just played a solid game. It was his first playoff game in three years. Back then he had a 1.86 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage in a six-game loss to the Rangers. The Canadiens only scored 11 goals in that series.

It would be hard to find somebody who predicted a Penguins sweep, but it would be even harder to find anybody who picked the Canadiens to win the series.

Just about everybody said Penguins in four.

That would require three straight wins from the Penguins, which would feel a lot like a sweep.

That might happen if the Penguins figure out their power play by Monday night, but you probably should prepare yourself for a Game 5.

Prepare for at least one more Penguins loss.

This one looks like it’s going to go the distance.