Penguins' power play struggles continue in loss to Rangers

The Penguins entered Monday’s road game against the New York Rangers with a hideous slump on the power play.

They preached the right things about trying to remedy their malfunctions in that area.

“Simplify” and “shoot” are two words they have offered repeatedly, almost to a man, during their skid with the man advantage.

“Stink” might be the most accurate vocabulary — at least among terms that aren’t too profane for publication — that can be used for this power play as of late.

Sure enough, it was pretty squalid during a come-from-ahead 3-1 road loss at Madison Square Garden.

The Penguins were gifted with six power-play opportunities but could only generate seven shots with the man advantage.

In contrast, the Rangers were 1 for 4 with their power-play opportunities, their lone conversion being the game-winning score.

It marked the Penguins’ fifth consecutive game without a power-play marker. They are 0 for 19 over that stretch.

“We’ve talked about just simplifying the game, trying to shoot the puck more and creating our offense off of that shot,” coach Mike Sullivan said via video conference. “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.”

The Penguins appeared to stay true to the pursuit of being simple and shooting more during the first period as they recorded four shots on 3:11 of advantage time they had. But with the remaining 8:49 of power-play time they enjoyed in the contest, the Penguins could only muster three shots, all in the third period.

“I just think we’re in a little bit of a mindset where we’re a little bit too robotic and predictable,” Sullivan said. “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.”

That approach led to their lone goal 9:05 into regulation. A wrister by Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel from the Rangers’ left point was wide of the cage on the near side. As goaltender Igor Shesterkin made an ill-advised attempt to knock the puck down with his blocker and missed, the puck hit off the end boards and deflected to the right of the cage. Penguins forward Jason Zucker was able to tuck the rebound in with a forehand shot with Shesterkin out of position. It was Zucker’s third goal of the season and second in as many games.

The game was tied late in the second period at the 17:42 mark when Rangers forward Kevin Rooney battled for a loose puck during a furious goalmouth scramble and jammed in his second goal of the season past scrambling goaltender Casey DeSmith.

New York took its first lead of the game at 11:10 of the third period on a power play. From the Penguins’ center point, Rangers defenseman Adam Fox lifted a wrister towards the cage that Rangers forward Chris Kreider redirected over DeSmith’s glove hand for his fourth goal.

An empty net goal by Rangers forward Artemi Panarin, his fifth, at the last second, literally — 19:59 of the third — capped the scoring.

DeSmith made in 21 saves victory.

With the Penguins’ next two games — each home contests against New Jersey — postponed due to covid-19 concerns involving the Devils, the Penguins figure to have ample time to refine their shoddy power play.

“It’s definitely a work in progress,” said Zucker, primarily used on the second power-play unit. “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.

“These guys that are on (the power play), they’re trying to make it work, obviously,” Sullivan said. “We’ll go to work on it this week. We’ll try to improve and get better.”