Takeaways: Penguins Go Winless On Four-Game Western Swing With 5-4 Loss To Utah

On Monday, the Pittsburgh Penguins had one more opportunity to salvage points from a four-game Western road swing that, so far, had not gone their way. 

Unfortunately, they came up empty.

Despite a late push that nearly tied the game, the Penguins dropped their fourth-straight game, this time at the hands of the Utah Mammoth, 5-4. The loss ended their road trip at 0-4, and they dropped to 3-6-1 on the season. 

Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell, Egor Chinakhov, and Declan Carlile found the back of the net for the Penguins, while goaltender Arturs Silovs stopped 24 of 29 Utah shots. The Penguins had a late push in the final minute during 6-on-5 play, but it wasn't enough to overcome what was yet another deep-dug hole. 

Pittsburgh actually opened up the scoring in this one when Erik Karlsson, just a minute and 11 seconds in, threw a puck toward the net on the power play that hit Mackenzie Weegar on the way in and trickled past Mammoth netminder Sebastian Cossa to make it 1-0. 

However, the lead didn't last too long, as Lawson Crouse connected on a nice pass from down low to Clayton Keller breaking through the slot with his speed, and he put it past Silovs to tie the game six minutes in. Kevin Stenlund gave the Mammoth the lead just past the midway point. 

The Penguins got another power play opportunity just before the seven-minute mark of the second period, and just eight seconds into the power play opportunity, Rakell got the puck down low around the net. He used his reach on a stuff attempt, and it was a success, giving him his long-awaited first goal of the season to tie the game at 2-2.

But Utah hit back with some momentum of their own. Nate Schmidt potted one from the point a few minutes later to retake the lead for the Mammoth, and a few minutes after that, Kailer Yamamoto beat Chinakhov on a play to make it 4-2.

A minute and a half into the third, Utah added to their lead with a Nick Schmaltz power play goal, who scored his team-leading fifth man-advantage goal of the season. But the Penguins did respond in the form of Chinakhov's second goal of the season less than a minute and a half later, which also marked the first points for Andrei Kuzmenko and Spencer Stastney as Penguins on the assists.

After a long stretch without a shot, the Penguins grabbed momentum in the second half of the final frame. To cap off a nice cycle by the first line, Declan Carlile broke down the left side and finished a play to bring the Penguins to within one at 5-4. 

And, at the end of the game, they came very close to tying it. Pittsburgh was getting some sustained pressure with the goaltender pulled, and they even forced a few icing calls to keep tired Utah players on the ice. After a few blasts by Karlsson and Rakell missed the net, Karlsson finally did put one on net, and Cossa let a rebound squirt to Ben Kindel on the doorstep.

Kindel shot it toward the net with the seconds ticking off the clock, and Cossa made a pad save in desperation to preserve the Mammoth lead and send the Penguins home pointless.

Here are a few takeaways from the Penguins' most recent loss:

- The result wasn't what the Penguins wanted. But there are some good things that happened in this game that the team can build on, especially after some pretty drastic lineup changes. 

It's no small thing that Rakell and Chinakhov both scored in this game. And not only did they score, they were two of the game's best players, with Chinakhov flanking Crosby's left and Rakell on Kindel's right. If those two - the Penguins' two best pure goal-scorers - can get going, they will be much better for it. 

The power play also stayed hot and scored on both of its opportunities in this game. It's three for its last three opportunities, and if that unit can get hot, the Penguins will - again - be much better for it. 

Karlsson, who did record his first goal of the season, registered his team-leading 10th and 11th points of the season to give him 11 points in 10 games. His 11 points is tied for third in the NHL among defensemen, as he only trails Evan Bouchard (16 points) and Quinn Hughes (12 points). 

And the push in the back half of the third showed that this team is capable of finding another level. Kindel was so, so close to tying that game, and Cossa made the save. The effort was too little, too late, but it's something to build on. 

- As far as the defense? Yeah, it hasn't looked great. The details haven't been there. The own-zone coverage has been atrocious, to put it nicely. 

But there is a very large something to be considered here. 

The Penguins have five new players on their blue line. Three or four of them are playing on any given night, and every pairing has at least one new face. 

Yes, every team in the NHL has been forced to work around a much-shortened preseason and training camp. But no team in hockey has as many new faces on the blue line as the Penguins. It's well-known that it typically takes defensemen a bit more time to adjust to new teams, new partners, and new systems. 

The defense has been a letdown, but if there can be a neutral take from this, much of the inconsistency and utterly baffling breakdowns can probably trace back to the fact that these guys simply have not had a lot of runway together. It's the same thing on the forward front, but it's even more true on the blue line: It's going to take some time for the coaching staff and the players to figure out the right combinations on the back end. 

Maybe this defense is far worse than last season's, maybe it isn't. The simple fact of the matter is that it's game 10, they have four of those five new defensemen on the NHL roster and playing, and more time and experimentation is needed to truly determine what things are probably going to look like for the remainder of the season. 

If the same issues and breakdowns persist with this frequency two or three weeks from now, yes, that's a different conversation. But, for now, the blue line needs more time to figure out what works and what doesn't. The shortened camp did not afford the opportunity for any runway whatsoever, especially with prospect-heavy preseason action. 

Even if it's not entirely an excuse, it has certainly been a factor.

- That said, yes, Carlile did score a goal, and a big one. 

But he has displayed some problematic defense for several games now.

In a few previous games, defensive zone turnovers were the culprit. It was clear that he and Karlsson were not meshing as a pairing, so he was put on a second pairing with Kaedan Korczak in this one, while Stastney was stapled to Karlsson.

The culprits in this one for Carlile? Two blown net-front coverages. He failed to win a net-front battle against Stenlund on his goal, and his failure to box out Jack McBain at the net-front resulted in him screening Silovs on Schmidt's goal. 

Then, on the power play goal, Schmaltz was left completely uncovered at the net-front prior to his goal, and Carlile was all the way up at the point like a forward. On the surface, this isn't a problem because of the Penguins' rotating PK, but Carlile is in this position frequently on the PK. He should probably have stayed down low with Karlsson prior to that sequence. 

There is far too much risk in Carlile's game right now, and both Spencer Stastney and Ilya Solovyov, the latter playing his first NHL action of the season, were serviceable in this game. If Sam Girard is ready to go Thursday - or Trevor van Riemsdyk - I'm not sure that Carlile has been playing well enough to stay in the lineup on a consistent basis. 

- Bryan Rust was injured sometime during the second period in this game, and he did not return. The only thing known up to this point is that it's a lower-body injury.

If he isn't good to go for Thursday's game against the Florida Panthers - and if he goes to injured reserve - I'd expect Avery Hayes or Rutger McGroarty to get the call, as they are lighting up the AHL right now with nine points each in six games. 

In any case, that's a tough break for Rust, who was injured out of camp to start the season. This guy's biggest knock in the last decade has been his inability to stay healthy, and it's a shame because the Penguins are a better team when he's in the lineup. 

- The Penguins are now 3-6-1 after 10 games. The Philadelphia Flyers - who took 10 games to win a hockey game - are now tied with them points-wise and have just one less win. And the Columbus Blue Jackets are just one point behind them in the basement of the Eastern Conference. 

That said, the Penguins are still only four points removed from a playoff spot in the early going.

They take on Florida Thursday. Last season, they were 3-0 against the Panthers and outscored them, 19-9. 

This is not last year's Florida team by any means, but it's also a depleted team. Brad Marchand is out for six weeks. Aleksander Barkov is out for a couple of months. Jacob Markstrom and Radko Gudas are both out day-to-day, with their statuses for Thursday uncertain. 

I'm not quite as high on this Florida team as some others, but it will be a real test for the Penguins to see if they can put together a full 60-minute effort back in front of their home fans. Their last showing at home was a clinical 2-1 winning effort that ended in a shootout win against one of the league's best two-way teams in the Dallas Stars.

It's early. But they need to right the ship soon. They took some encouraging steps against Utah, but Thursday, in some respects, feels as near to a must-win as a game in October possibly can. 

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