Takeaways: Mistakes Difference In Penguins' 5-3 Loss To Capitals

Much like their start in a 3-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets Monday, the Pittsburgh Penguins didn't exactly come out of the gate strong on Wednesday in Washington against the Capitals. 

And, akin to their loss Monday, their sloppy, dysfunctional start was too much to overcome.

The Capitals defeated the Penguins, 5-3, in what was a remarkably sloppy defensive effort from the visiting club. Pittsburgh brought it to within one by the end of the second period, but they were ultimately unable to undo their own mistakes from the first half of the game. 

Arturs Silovs stopped 22 of 27 Washington shots on goal, and Logan Thompson went 27-for-30 for the Capitals in net.

Just 23 seconds into the game, former Penguin Anthony Beauvillier found himself on a breakaway, and he converted on it to give Washington the early 1-0 lead. However, Bryan Rust - fresh off injured reserve and playing in his first game of the season - had the equalizer just 56 seconds later after a nice play in the neutral zone by Kindel got him the puck and allowed him to make his patented power move to the net.

But, then, the mistakes really started to pile up. 

Nearing the 12-minute mark of the opening frame, Kris Letang found himself with the puck on the right wall in the defensive zone. He softly played the puck down the wall and behind the net, where Pierre Luc-Dubois was waiting for it. Dubois swiftly got the puck into the slot, where Tom Wilson was set up and made it 2-1.

The mishaps carried into the third. Less than five minutes in, Hendrix Lapierre played the puck down the wall again in the defensive zone, and Arturs Silovs went back to retrieve it with a few Capitals gaining on him. Declan Carlile was beat to the puck by Alex Tuch, and the puck squirted over to Wilson, who was able to scoop up the puck before either Penguin could get to it and slip it to Dubois in the slot, returning the favor from the second goal to give the Caps the 3-1 lead.

Almost 10 minutes later, the Penguins were pressuring in the offensive zone, and Carlile made an ill-advised cross-ice pass attempt in the direction of Erik Karlsson on the offensive blue line. Tuch intercepted it and went in on a breakaway, beating Silovs to make it 4-1.

The Penguins would not go quietly, though, and seemed to wake up after the fourth goal. Less than a minute after Tuch's goal, Egor Chinakhov and Evgeni Malkin found themselves on a two-on-one due to a neutral zone breakdown by the Caps, and Malkin hit the crossbar on off a feed from Chinakhov. The puck bounced into the slot area, where Tommy Novak was waiting for it to cut the deficit to two with his third of the season.

Then, with only two minutes left in the second, Nick Robertson - playing on a fourth line with Blake Lizotte and Connor Dewar - deflected a Kaedan Korczak shot while getting cross-checked to the ice, and it snuck past Thompson to bring Pittsburgh to within one.

Even with the Caps beginning to make a lot of defensive mistakes of their own - surrendering a few breakaways to the Penguins, too - they were able to seal the victory on a power play goal by Ryan Leonard less than four minutes into the period, which came after a few shorthanded chances from the Penguins. 

Despite ending the first period with just four shots on goal to the Capitals' 14, Pittsburgh ended up outshooting Washington at the end of it. If not for such glaring mistakes, the game likely has a different result. 

"We've got to manage the game better," head coach Dan Muse said after the loss. "We've got to manage momentum."

Here are a few takeaways from this one:

- The Penguins could, rather easily, be 4-0 right now if they weren't so busy beating themselves. 

They're a better team than the Jets, but a sloppy, lackluster effort with far too many careless plays led to a 3-2 regulation loss. They're probably a pretty even matchup with the Caps, and they quite literally handed them three goals they wouldn't otherwise have had. 

Simply put, they need to be smarter with the puck. There are way too many critical giveaways in their own zone and in the neutral zone and way too many odd-man breaks happening, and if they expect to win games this season, they need to cut down on the mistakes. 

Mistakes happen every game for every team, but the Penguins are rolling the dice far too much and leaving their goaltenders out to dry.

- This was a particularly brutal game for Penguins' blueliners not named Sam Girard and Kaedan Korczak.

Letang's turnover preceding the second goal was putrid. There are many other choices he could have made with the puck there, but he chose to softly send it down the right wall and right to Dubois, who fed it on a silver platter to Wilson in the slot.

Then, some kind of miscommunication between Carlile and Silovs led directly to the third goal. Then, Carlile handed Tuch the keys to the fourth goal. Silovs appeared to be screened on the final goal, but the optics on it weren't great.

Karlsson was giving the puck away with frequency again, too, even if none of his plays resulted in goals against. Same with Trevor van Riemsdyk, who looked lost most of the evening.

It's early in the season, and sloppiness is to be expected. However, the Penguins' blue line needs to clean things up and get accustomed to one another sooner rather than later. 

- Sidney Crosby does not look himself. He was a minus-5 in this one. 

Yes, a minus-5. He was on the ice for all five Capitals' goals. 

He and Rakell have been slower starters in the last couple of years. So, just four games in, it's not yet time to raise alarm bells. 

However, he is not only ineffective offensively at five-on-five right now, he is also costing them on the defensive side of the puck. His dip in footspeed is rather noticeable this season, and Rickard Rakell's lack of speed on his line isn't helping matters, either. 

Crosby and Rakell have, historically, been very good together. I liked what I saw from Robertson in training camp and in the first couple of games on that line as a complement, but that experiment was ended quickly. By the second period in the Caps' game, Rust was back up on the first line with Crosby and Rakell, and it was status quo.

Even if the Penguins have a ton of depth - and, contrary to national narratives, the Penguins are not even close to entirely reliant on Crosby for offense - it's going to become a legitimate problem if this first line doesn't start producing for a plethora of reasons. I'd give it a few games, and I'd shift things back to what was intended early on.

But they need to get going soon. The Penguins have scored 19 goals this season - and Crosby and Rakell have zero of them. That's not ideal at all.

- Speaking of which, there is far too much lineup shuffling happening right now. 

I actually did a bit of a 180 on this in the middle of the game. Most of the time, when lines aren't producing, it makes sense to change things around. I said the Penguins should have a short leash with the first line.

I take that back. I think a lot of their issues the last two games have been a result of players not having ample time to gel together. It's difficult to build chemistry when you're constantly playing with different people.

I'd like to see the Penguins revert to the original forward lines they had built during training camp in their next tilt on Friday against the Columbus Blue Jackets, with the lone exception being Ville Koivunen subbing in for Andrei Kuzmenko, who is on non-roster leave from the Penguins:

Robertson-Crosby-Rakell
Chinakhov-Novak-Malkin
Koivunen-Kindel-Rust
Dewar-Lizotte-Lapierre/Elmer Soderblom

Chemistry needs time to build. Muse clearly had a vision for these lines during camp, and they weren't given much runway with all the lineup shuffling and personnel rotations. 

So, give them some time. Robertson has three goals in four games and has produced more than Crosby and Rakell. Rust and Kindel have looked good in the little time they've spent together. 

The Penguins have a lot of depth. But it's still important for them to find the right combinations for that depth, and the only way to figure those things out is to allow guys room to gel.

- On a positive note, Kindel is far and away the best player for the Penguins right now. 

Novak and Robertson have been quite good up to this point as well. But Kindel has been doing it all. He has more speed than he did last season. His increased size is evident in how hard it is to knock him off the puck. He's making highly cerebral plays and reads. He looks excellent on the penalty kill and in all three zones. He's effective on the power play. 

This kid is 19. He's playing like a ten-year veteran, and his offensive ceiling gets higher by the game. Kindel has two goals and four points in three games, and the pace, honestly, looks pretty sustainable, especially if he's glued to a scorer like Rust.

Point-per-game is not out of the question, and him being this team's best player going forward may not be hyperbole. He looks like a first-line center with the way he's playing. Right now. 

He is going to be a special player for the Penguins. Underestimate him at your peril.

- Lastly, Kindel needs to be out in six-on-five situations. At this juncture, having Letang, Karlsson, Crosby, Malkin, Rust, and Rakell all out there is malpractice. 

Kindel, their best player in the present, needs to be on the ice when the stakes are highest. I'd throw Novak out there, too. They've earned those opportunities.

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