Penguins hampered by Bruins' defense in loss

Having earned points in 16 of 19 games before Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Penguins have reached a pretty firm conclusion.

Defense comes first. Offense will follow.

“That’s the way we’ve got to play,” defenseman Marcus Pettersson said via video conference. “We don’t have to take chances to create offense. We’re going to create because we have so many good players up front. This is the way we have to play moving forward.”

That notion held true, albeit in a different fashion than Pettersson presumably had hoped, on Tuesday in a 3-1 loss at PPG Paints Arena.

Limited to 26 shots, with relatively few that could be labeled as “quality,” the Penguins largely were hampered by a stout Boston defense as well as All-Star goaltender Tuukka Rask.

Throughout the contest, on the occasions the Penguins got a puck past a phalanx of defenders — the Bruins were credited with an ample 21 blocked shots — Rask, with relatively little traffic to contend with, was able to routinely boot rebounds safely to the vicinity of Fifth Avenue. On the rare instances he allowed a rebound near his crease, one of his teammates would nullify a potential second scoring chance by playing the puck out of danger.

“Tuukka Rask is a great goaltender,” Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson said. “That’s part of how they play is they collapse in the middle around their net. If we do get a chance, they’re good at making sure the rebounds are cleared away and our forwards are boxed out. That goes into being good defensively. That’s definitely one of the areas that makes them hard to play against.

“They were able to front a lot of our shots and (turn) the transition the other way.”

The Bruins broke a stalemate late in the second period at the 18-minute, 10-second mark when forward David Krejci dragged a puck past Matheson in the Penguins’ slot and lifted a sinister backhander from the left circle past goaltender Tristan Jarry’s blocker for his seventh goal.

Boston forward Brad Marchand sealed the victory at 9:11 of the third period when he cleaned up a rebound to the right of the Penguins’ crease with a forehand shot for his 26th goal.

Bruins forward Taylor Hall added an insurance score at 12:18 of the third for his sixth goal.

The Penguins broke the shutout bid at 17:39 of the third period. Taking a stretch pass out of the defensive zone by Penguins defenseman Kris Letang, forward Jeff Carter chopped a slapper from the right circle that beat Rask’s blocker on the far side for his 11th goal of the season and third since joining the Penguins via trade April 12.

Jarry made 28 saves on 31 shots as his record fell to 21-9-3.

As for Rask, he improved to 12-4-2 thanks to the sturdy defense in front of him.

“The whole night, it seemed like we were a step behind in terms of winning puck battles,” Penguins forward Teddy Blueger said. “Didn’t get enough pucks on net, didn’t have enough traffic in front of Rask. The rebounds that he did kick out, we didn’t get to too many of them.

“That’s not really a recipe for success.”

Note: Injured Penguins forwards Frederick Gaudreau and Evgeni Malkin participated in the morning skate, albeit in noncontact capacities. Sullivan suggested they look “stronger” as they recover from various ailments.