Penguins eliminated from playoffs after being upset by the Canadiens
When crafting his lineup on a game-by-game basis, Mike Sullivan has a basic principle he professes to abide by.
What players will give his team the best chance to win?
On Friday, he deemed goaltender Tristan Jarry the most worthy candidate of his options in net in achieving that overlying goal of victory.
And sure enough, Jarry validated his coach’s endorsement by making 20 saves in his postseason debut.
It wasn’t enough, however, as the Penguins’ season came to an end after they lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 2-0, in Game 4 of their qualifying round series.
Montreal claimed the best-of-five series, 3-1, and advanced to the first round of the postseason while the Penguins will move on to a second consecutive offseason full of uncertainty after another disappointing postseason that fell short of even the most modest of expectations.
Of course, the only expectations that matter come from the upper tiers of management. And its oft-stated goal is nothing short of the Stanley Cup.
After winning that prize in 2016 and 2017, the Penguins have failed to move past the second round in each of the three past postseasons. In fact, they have regressed during that span.
After being dispatched by the Washington Capitals in the second round in 2018, the Penguins were swept by the New York Islanders in the first round in 2019. This season, they fell in the qualifying round to a Canadiens squad that was the NHL’s 24th-best team in the regular season based on record and was only included in the postseason tournament because of the NHL jury-rigging a format deemed necessary by the league’s four-month coronavirus hiatus.
How the organization moves on from this humiliating loss is merely speculation at this point. General manager Jim Rutherford and company will have the better part of three months to adjust this roster as training camps for the 2020-21 season aren’t scheduled to begin until mid-November.
“I haven’t even given it much thought at this point,” Sullivan said via video conference from Toronto. “We just lost the series. It’s disappointing. It’s emotional. We care. We all care. It’s emotional. I’m not trying to dodge (the) question. I just don’t know if I’m prepared to answer it with a valid answer. I’m sure we’ll all have to go back and look at the experience and try to evaluate it and assess it and see where we’ll go.”
“It’s a really hard one to evaluate,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “That’s the honest truth as far as trying to break this all down. It’s a tough one to break down overall.”
The Penguins may have limited routes to go. With the NHL’s salary cap remaining flat at $81.5 million, the team will have considerable decisions to make on the futures of restricted free agents such as Jarry and the goaltender he replaced in Game 4, Matt Murray.
Jarry was sturdy throughout most of a contest that saw both squads offer a mostly safe, conservative game. Canadiens forward Artturi Lehkonen didn’t score the first goal until 15:49 of the third. An empty-net score by Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber at the 19:28 mark secured victory and sent the Penguins into a very unclear offseason.
“We still believe in the core group of this team,” defenseman Kris Letang said. “We have a lot in the tank. We’re going to keep playing hard and give everything for the Penguins. We have to be better.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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